


Le Sang des Saints

by AeschylusRex



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Vampire AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-04 20:26:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12778860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AeschylusRex/pseuds/AeschylusRex
Summary: Amélie Lacroix has heard the old folktales of things that go bump in the night, but those are only children’s stories. Surely she has nothing to worry about.





	1. The Blood of Saints

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [That Van Helsing Scene](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/340791) by dinochoobs. 



> 11.20.17
> 
> Anyone know French? Feel free to correct my grammar if you do. Don't be shy. 
> 
> ~Enjoy

It happens in Paris.

It could’ve happened anywhere, but it doesn’t. It happens, of all places, in the city of love.

On a night no different than any other, in the middle of an unseasonably cool December, Amélie bundles up in a wool coat and makes her way alone from her studio back to the riverside apartment she shares with her husband. There are blue lights strung up in the trees along the Champs-Elysées, and the sky is a dark, bulbous stew of threatening rainclouds. White, forked tongues of lightning lick the rooftops of the city. Brackish puddles glisten from the gutters. Glass storefronts glow jewel bright for Christmas, their windows stacked with glittering baubles, their doorways hung with fragrant, green boughs of cedar and pine. Even in such intemperate weather, the district is bustling with activity.  

In a narrow alleyway, two blocks from home, Amélie removes her keys from her purse and lets them jingle in her hand as she makes her way up a low set of steps. A mouse skitters over the wet cobblestones, nearly colliding with her shoe and she jumps back, heart palpitating. She almost doesn’t hear the footsteps drawing up behind her.

By the time she does it is much too late to run.

A hand like smoke materializes in front of her face.

“Scream and I’ll break your neck before you can draw a breath.”

Cold terror, like ice water, floods her veins. Amélie shakes her head mutely, intending to comply, but the keys slip from her grip and strike the cobblestone. The hand over her mouth tightens. Another wraps around her waist, pinning her arms.

Harsh words rasp in her ear. “Clumsy bitch.”

Tears form in Amélie’s eyes. Her heart is beating so hard. Blood pounds in her ears. The heels of her pumps scrape over stone as the man wrenches her body to the left, forcing her up face first against the brick wall. She shakes her head again, desperate pleas muffled by his cool hand.

“Quiet!”

Large fingers tear off the buttons on the front of her coat. Broad, muscular hips pin her too firmly to wriggle free. Amélie sobs against the palm of his hand as a cold, wet tongue slides along the back of her ear, flicking up to curl over cartilage. His grip shifts and he steps back just enough to strip the purse strap and coat from her shoulders. Tears stream from her eyes. She’s shaking all over. He won’t let her see him, and she concludes the worst. Amelia’s frantic thoughts reach out to a deity she rarely calls on. Images of her husband flicker behind her eyelids like images scrolling past on old film.

“Please-“ she begs, squirming free while he is momentarily distracted with the coat.

A sob catches in her throat as cold air hits her skin. She shivers violently. Her blue leotard suddenly feels like nothing at all, just the thinnest scraps of fabric stretched over her body. The iron grip releases her mouth smearing her own saliva along her chin. Amélie lurches forward and tastes damp, dirty brick.

“Beg if you want,” the voice jeers, “I don’t mind.”

“Please!” Amélie says. “Please! I have money! I’ll give you whatever you want just- augh!”

The cold tongue laves at the side of her neck, just under her pulse. “Anything?”

Amélie chokes on her words. She is too terrified to respond.

The man behind her laughs, and it is the cruelest sound she has ever heard. A terrible desperation fills her mind. She suddenly has very little hope of surviving this encounter.

“I don’ t need your permission to take what I want,” he says.

Amélie feels the pinch as he bites down and yelps at the sting, but the pain doesn’t last very long. A hot, tingling sensation seeps outward from her jugular, flowing down into her chest, slowing her rabbit-quick heart. Within a matter of seconds, her limbs feel like lead and her head is buzzing. She is very, very sleepy. Her body is curiously warm.

The pressure leaves her neck. Amélie drifts on a wave.

Something cold and wet bumps her lips. “Drink.”

Amélie tries to shake her head, tries to push away, tries to breathe. Her body is too weak. Her ears are full of cotton. She feels distinctly nauseous, too dizzy to hold herself upright.

“ _Drink_.”

Fingers pry her lips apart and delve between her teeth. She tastes salt and rust.

“Good. A little more.”

Amélie whimpers.

The liquid in her mouth tastes like blood.

It is the last thought she has before she slips away.

 

V v v v v V

 

She wakes in her bed beset with fever. The white sheets are thrashed and damp. The windows are closed up, the curtains drawn tight.

She has no memory of getting home.

There is only the ache in her neck to remind her of the strange, now surreal attack in the alleyway, but everything else is lost to the febrile heat. She hallucinates, hears voices, sees faces, sees Gérard.

“Où es-tu, mon amour?” she whispers.

Her jaw aches when she speaks. He does not answer.

Time is an enigma.

Later, she staggers to the kitchen and puts a call in to the police on the landline, but the conversation is muddled and she can’t understand all the questions. The woman tells her to come down to the station to file a report. Amélie kneels down on the floor and crushes the phone in her hand. The throbbing in her jaw has worsened exponentially. Her mouth hurts too much to speak. Everything is spinning, too loud, too bright. She’s too hot.

“No more,” she whispers. “Please.”

The pain only gets worse.

She passes out again on the tile floor.

 

V v v v v V

 

Amélie startles awake at night. A lonely siren wails as it passes in the street below her apartment, and she rubs blearily at her eyes to find that the sweat on her brow has dried.

The clock on the bedside table reads 23:18.

There are 28 messages on the voicemail, but the handset is in pieces on the floor, and it is only once she has wandered the length of the large apartment in a daze that it occurs to her to check the date.

She calls Gérard as soon as she finds her cellphone, dead in her purse in the hallway.

“Mon amour,” she says. Her voice is raspy with disuse.

_“Amélie! I was so worried!”_

“I’m sorry, I’ve been very ill.”

_“Too ill to text me? I must’ve sent you 50 messages! I already moved up my flight to tomorrow morning!”_

Amélie blinks and glances to her right. A week’s worth of mail has spilled over the welcome mat below the metal slot in the front door. She remembers very little of the time that’s passed. She must’ve been asleep for days. Her fingers stray to her neck, fingering the scabbed bumps there. Something bit her.

No, not some _thing_ . Some _one._

“Chéri,” she says, apprehensive, “I have to tell you something. Quelque chose s’est passé.”

_“What? What happened? Are you alright? You don’t sound like yourself.”_

Amélie peels away the scab with her fingernail. “Do I not?”

_“Non. S’il te plait, dis-moi ce qu’il s’est passé.”_

She tells him about the terrible man in the alleyway, the way he pinned her up against the brick, the sharp bite on her neck.

“I must’ve been sick with stress,” she concludes.

 _“You’ve been traumatized!”_ Gérard exclaims, sounding, himself, far more traumatized by the retelling of the story than Amélie. _“Of course you’ve been sick! Oh, darling, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there. Have you called the police?_ ”

Amélie squints. “I think so.”

_“Call them back right away. I’m taking the first flight out tomorrow. I should be home by lunch.”_

“Okay.” A wave of relief washes over her. “Je t’aime.”

_“Je t’aime, Ami. Call if you need anything.”_

“I will.”

She hangs up the phone and sits in the dark thinking until dawn.

 

V v v v v V

 

In the morning she decides she’s gone long enough without a shower. She turns the knobs to their usual position then goes to examine her face in the mirror.

A strangled cry leaves her lips.

Her eyes have changed color.

Amélie grips the sides of the sink, leaning forward to get a closer look at herself. The rosy hue in her cheeks is gone. In its absence she is disconcertingly white. The twin punctures on her neck have begun to scar. She turns her head from side to side while the bathroom fills with steam, pausing time and again to wipe the condensation from the mirror.

“Qu'est-ce que c'est…?” she murmurs, wincing again at the sharp ache in her jaw.

She opens her mouth to examine the source of the pain and discovers, to her horror, that her left canine tooth is loose. She wiggles it experimentally with a finger. Did she strike it against the wall without remembering? The final minutes of the attack are so hazy now, she can only remember fragments, the sharp pinch of teeth on her neck, the copper tang of blood on her tongue.

She shudders and puts it out of her mind, sets about stripping off her blue leotard. The right shoulder is stained a dark, rusty brown. The skin underneath is just as pale as her face. She throws it in the trash with the ripped tights and the wrinkled undergarments. None of it will ever be worn again.

She’s trembling as she goes to stick her hand under the showerhead, intending to give it a perfunctory temperature test, but she recoils immediately, eyes flaring wide.   

“Merde!” she hisses.

The water is nearly scalding. Amélie blinks angrily at the knobs. She’d set them perfectly, hadn’t she? Goosebumps prickle along her skin. Something isn’t right. Her eyes are the wrong color and the aching in her mouth is getting worse. She’s heard the old folktales of things that go bump in the night, but surely those are only children’s stories, non?

With shaking hands, she resets the temperature on the shower and goes to take an ibuprofen from the medicine cabinet before she clambers in.

 

V v v v v V

 

Of course, Gérard notices that she’s pale before he notices her eyes. When he does, he drops his suitcase on its side in the front entry and rushes over to take her cheeks in his large, gloved hands.

“What’s happened to your eyes?” he asks, frightened. “They’re- they’re gold!”

Amélie tries to smile, but her jaw still aches. The curtains in the apartment are still drawn. She hasn’t slept, she’s barely eaten. The stale bread she chewed on after her shower tasted flavorless and was remarkably unsatisfying. It didn’t take the edge off in the slightest. It’s all too strange, and she doesn’t have the strength to put on a brave face right now.

Gérard calls the police and paces around the apartment in a frenzy.

“We have to see a doctor as soon as possible,” he insists, the moment he hangs up.

“Alright,” she winces away as he pulls back the living room drapes, “but can’t we keep it dark in here? I prefer it.”

“You’re obviously still ill,” Gérard says, and removes a leather glove to place the back of his hand to her forehead. “Mon dieu! You’re so cold!”

“Am I?” Fear rumbles along Amélie’s spine. “I feel warm enough.”

He kisses her lips, and licks his own experimentally, brow creased as though he’s trying to solve a difficult puzzle. Amélie supposes he is, all things considered.

“Are you hungry?” he asks.

“Starving,” Amélie realizes, with a modicum of surprise.

The sensation is a little bit different than usual. Somewhat more like a thirst than a hunger. Sort of…in between things. She can’t quite place it.

“I’ll grab some sandwiches from downstairs. Jambon et fromage?”

“Oui.”

He barely remembers to grab his scarf as he leaves and returns only 15 minutes later with ruddy cheeks flushed from exertion.

Amélie takes three bites of the sandwich before she decides she can’t stomach it.

That night she loses her tooth in the sink.

 

V v v v v V

 

They fight.

“I don’t want to see a doctor!” Amélie says.

The police have come and gone.

She is scared.

Gérard paces back and forth, hands in his hair, on his temples, over his eyes. He’s scared, too.

“We have to find out what is happening to you! You could’ve been poisoned!”

“I feel fine!” Amélie insists, but it’s a lie.

She feels different. She’s lost another tooth. Her skin is cool to the touch, room temperature at best. The light from the windows is too bright to be comfortable. It makes her skin crawl. And her eyes…

She can see in the dark.

She hasn’t told him that yet.

“We _need_ to go. Please, Ami.” Gérard takes her face in his hands, pleading. “Please. For _me_. I need to know you’re safe.”

Amélie quivers and longs to resist, but she’s grown very tired. The food she manages to eat is bland and unsatisfying. She is weak. She feels anemic. Something isn’t right. Something she doesn’t want to name. It can’t be real. It simply cannot.

“Okay.” She acquiesces gently. “Okay, mon amour. I will go.”

Gérard’s entire body sags with relief. He kisses her, and she ignores his instinctive flinch at her lukewarm skin. She touches his hair, cards her fingers through it. His scent is soothing. She puts her nose to his neck and inhales. A wave of calm washes over her. It’s going to be okay. This is exactly what she needs.

“Can we go to bed?” she asks.

Gérard pulls back just a little. “But it’s only just dinnertime.”

Amélie pouts. “I’ve barely slept in days, chéri. I’m exhausted.”

He sags, and she notices his haggard look, the bags under his eyes. He’s too young to be so beleaguered. She supposes this is her fault, in some roundabout way. As much as anything ever is. Love is such a gamble. She recalls what he told her on the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower, snowflakes stinging their faces, the city lights shrouded under a white haze.

“You have my heart on a string, Amélie. Please, don’t ever let go.”

Her eyes swim with tears as she burrows deeper into his collar. She wants to feel his skin on hers.

“Take me to bed,” she murmurs, and there’s a growl to it.

He rises to the request immediately.

He doesn’t comment about her missing teeth or her cold skin, doesn’t recoil from her golden stare. His fingers map her body with confidence as he lays her down against the sheets. His fingers lift the hem of her shirt, up and over her head, tossing it carelessly at the armchair in the corner.  

“You are so beautiful.”

His mouth wanders down her sternum. She can feel the stubble on his cheeks between her breasts. She arches her back as he strips her bare and puts his warm hands on her body, touching her, feeling her.

“I missed you so much,” she breathes.

Gérard loses his shirt, and then it’s skin on skin. Amélie whispers her encouragement. Her fingers tangle in his hair, clutch at his shoulders, stroke the taut column of muscle in his neck. She’s lost the moment he thrusts into her.

“Ohhh.” Her head falls back against the pillow. “Ohhh, my love.”

There is something powerful building. It licks at the edges of her consciousness like fire, hot and hungry and urgent. She clings to his back, rocking steadily, meeting his passion with her own. Sweat gathers on her chest. Her body feels so, so warm.

“The color is returning to your cheeks,” Gérard gasps, and Amélie can only moan in reply.

The pressure is mounting. The ache in her mouth has become a sharp, piercing throb, but she can’t stop. A mist has descended over her mind. Her nails bite into the skin on his back, raking hard lines into pliant muscle. She’s approaching her climax at blinding speed.

“Je suis là!” she cries. “Je suis là!”

Her muscles contract. The spasms drive her up against his body, clinging, shivering, whimpering through the freefall. Her nails pierce his skin. A sharp, sweet tang cuts the air.

“Beautiful,” he groans.

His brow is slick against hers. There’s a roaring in her ears and a rush in her veins. Amélie gasps as a stabbing pain fills her mouth and it takes several, disoriented seconds to realize that something smooth and needle sharp has filled the gaps in her teeth.

Oh.

The scent in the air.

She grips his head and rolls it to one side. She is so unbearably hungry. She is starving. A new drive has taken hold of her, some instinct she doesn’t know, some stranger in her body. She can’t stop. The mist is too thick. The hunger is too strong.

Gérard grunts as her teeth pierce his neck.

“A-Amélie…”

He doesn’t even struggle as she drains the life from his body.

 

V v v v v V

 


	2. The Blood of Strangers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11.23.17  
> Seriously, English is my only native language, so if you notice any grammatical errors in the languages I've used, please feel free to correct me. Consider it a teaching moment. I love to learn.  
> ~Enjoy

It is, by most accounts, an unremarkable Wednesday afternoon in Geneva, Switzerland.

The February sky is blank and bright, a familiar canvas of foggy, featureless silver. Pedestrians bundled in coats and scarfs make their way along the Promenade du Lac at the waterfront park. The cafes in the business district are bustling with lunch-goers. The hotels are full, the ski season has been favorable, and tourism has been steady. There is nothing on the surface to indicate a city in conflict.

Rusted hinges shriek on an old service door as it swings open, letting a small, brightly clad figure out into a narrow courtyard. The door slams shut again, muffling the loud, electronic music that had, for a second, spilled out from the dark interior. Light footsteps crunch over freshly fallen snow, halting beside a green trash bin. Hana Song’s dark hair billows in the cold wind that blows up off Lac Léman. Her thumbs are glued the phone in her hand, tapping out a text message at rapid speed. She pokes her tongue through the little rectangle of space between her top and bottom fangs, brows furrowed in concentration. Her stubbly white horns, freshly filed down, are itching again beneath her blue baseball cap, and she reaches up to tug the pink headphones off her ears, relieving some of the pressure on her scalp.

The phone in her palm rings.

“Yeoboseyo?”

_“Hullo. Find anything?”_

Hana squints up into the bright, winter sky. It’s cold enough here to remind her of home, if only the food weren’t so bland. She’s resorted to ordering spices online and making her own kimchi from scratch.

“Nope.” She pops the ‘p’ for emphasis. “You?”

_“Zilch.”_

Hana picks her teeth with a pink fingernail. It’s been a slow week and she’s horribly bored.  

“Wah wah,” she says, sing-song. “Game over.”

_“Eh maybe. The day’s still young.”_

“Yeah, but you’re not.”

_“Don’t be a cow, luv. Some of us age like humans. By the way, you hungry? There’s an Indian cafe on Rue de Monthoux. Should be just a couple blocks from you. They make a proper mussamun curry.”_

Hana digs a plastic chip bag out of her jacket pocket and crumples it up in her hand. “Sure, whatever.”

_“Brilliant. Meet you in ten.”_

_“_ Order me a Coke.”

The line cuts out abruptly. Hana lowers the phone, glares at the screen for a second, then shoves it in the pocket of her puffy, two-toned, down coat. It’s bubblegum pink with periwinkle blue shoulders and sleeves, snap button pockets, and a cartoonish, white rabbit decal on the left breast that’s been peeling for ages. It makes her look young, but it matches her aesthetic too perfectly to replace. She rubs at her cheek, smearing a hand over the pair of pink, triangular markings visible there just below her rosy brown eyes, simple enough to be mistaken for quirky tattoos.

She pulls the brim of her ball cap lower, dons a pair of flashy, reflective aviators, and turns to lift the lid of the trashcan, intending to toss out the old snack wrapper. It’s only then that she notices a dark shape huddled on the ground behind a long, neglected cement planter. Suspicious, and fairly certain she already knows what she’s looking at, Hana quickly disposes of her trash, then edges closer until she recognizes the tail of a long black wool coat and black leather boots splayed out against the snow.

It’s a person.

“Well, hi there.” Hana kneels down beside the body, a woman she realizes, and rolls her over. “Who might you be?”

She pauses when she catches sight of the pretty face revealed. Long, wavy, black hair, almost purple in the bright light, sticks in clumps to her soft cheeks and sharp chin. Her dark lashes are thick, and her lips are full. Hana pouts for a second. This woman is gorgeous and it’s not fair.

She’s also probably dead. Her skin is so pale it’s nearly blue.

Hana sighs and removes one of her white gloves. The first press of her hand to the woman’s cheek causes her to jolt back in disgust

“Ah, shi-bal chewoyo!” She grimaces. ”You’re either dead or _un_ dead, lady.”

Hana replaces her glove and diligently sets about prying the woman’s pale lips apart. Her sunglasses slide down her nose as she concentrates, feeling around in the woman’s mouth.

“Aha!” The tip of her glove catches on something sharp. Hana smirks. “Is that a toothpick, or are you just happy to see me?”

Golden eyes flicker open.

Faster than Hana can blink, the woman snaps her teeth like a rabid dog, fangs glistening. A low, hungry growl rumbles up from her pale throat.

“Shit!” Hana stumbles backwards, hand reaching for her trusty bangmangi, the extendable pink baton clipped to her belt loop.

The woman, now very obviously a hungry vampire, pushes herself upright on shaking forearms and scrambles through the snow, boots seeking purchase on slippery stones. Her golden eyes are wild and swirling. Her beautiful dark hair is a rat’s nest of knotted, wet tendrils. She looks like a ghoul.

“Oh, honey,” Hana deploys her baton and gives it a test swing, summoning the strength and speed of her resident dokkaebi, “you’re a mess.”

The vampire snarls and lunges artlessly. Hana’s augmented speed allows her to dodge to one side just in time, hair fluttering elegantly behind her. Her movements look effortless and graceful compared to the feral creature panting and convulsing just three feet away. Hana’s never seen a vampire look quite so wretched.

“What happened to you, huh?” She prods at the creature’s hunched shoulder with the end of her baton. “You look like you got hit by a bus.” A low, pained growl is the only response she gets, and Hana’s eyes narrow warily. “When’s the last time you ate, unnie?”

The vampire stiffens, muscles coiling tight, and Hana again has to dodge backward as the woman turns and makes a desperate swipe for her throat. This time, Hana takes no chances. She whips the creature hard across the temple with her bangmangi. The woman’s eyes roll back into her head. Her body thuds as it lands in the snow on its side.

Hana retracts her baton, clips it back onto her belt, and reaches into her pocket to pull out a packet of bubblegum. She unwraps a piece as she considers the scene in front of her. This is definitely not the vampire they were looking for. Whoever this woman is, she’s in rough shape.

Hana blows a bubble and lets it pop on her lips.  

“Aigo, what a pain.”

She withdraws her phone and hits speed dial. It picks up on the second ring.

“Yo, Trace, you’ll never believe what I just ran into outside Lucio’s club.”

 

V v v v v V

 

Amélie wakes in darkness.

There’s a ringing in her ears and an ache in her head. Her lashes flutter, heavy eyelids swollen. It takes some time, and considerable effort, to peel them open. Her surroundings are unfamiliar. Despite her blurry vision she is able to make out a featureless, plaster ceiling overhead, illuminated by the dim, yellow glow of a lamp. She’s inside somewhere, laid out on some kind of bed. A little shifting about tells her that her legs are bare, that she’s covered with a blanket that smells of detergent. Someone has brought her here. There is no way she managed to stumble into a place like this of her own power.

She decides to employ her other senses to learn more.

An experimental sniff of the room tells a very confusing story. She picks up too many scents to make sense of, everything from garlic and rosemary to sulfur, old blood, and the tang of chemicals she doesn’t recognize. Beneath it all, she smells the presence of a human, but not one she knows. It’s a perplexing array.

Trying to focus her hearing reveals less, initially. There’s a ringing in her ears which, at first, drowns everything out, but it eventually starts to fade, giving way to a slow and steady electronic beep, the sort that might belong to a hospital heart monitor, except this is clearly no hospital. Amélie listens for more clues. There is the sound of traffic, presumably from a city street outside, and the pluck of fingers on a keyboard nearby. Leather-soled shoes tap against a hardwood floor. Quiet breathing is interrupted by a soft, lilting voice muttering something vulgar in German.

Amélie blinks.

She’s not alone, and her German is very rusty.

The machine behind her beeps out of rhythm and there’s a shift from the owner of the soft voice, turning in a creaky chair from what is presumably a desk.

“Du bist endlich wach.”

Amélie squints and tries to turn her head toward the voice, but her neck is horribly stiff, and she winces in pain. The chair groans as the other occupant of the room stands. Hard soles reverberate with steady steps across the hardwood floor.

“Sprechen sie Deutsch?”

“S-sehr wenig,” Amélie croaks.

A kind, youthful face framed with swooping blonde bangs pops into view overhead. It’s a woman, of course. A very striking woman. It is not at all what Amélie expected, though she’s not quite sure she expected anything at all.

“Ah, you’re French,” the woman observes, in lightly accented English, then switches languages effortlessly. “D'où êtes-vous?”

“Paris.”

“So, Reinhardt was correct.” Blue eyes, pale enough to be grey in the dim lamplight, rove over her face. “Amélie, yes?”

Amélie winces at a name she hasn’t heard in months. “Oui.”

“I’m Dr. Angela Ziegler. You can call me whatever you like, although you should know, many around here call me ‘Mercy’.”

Amélie wrinkles her brow. “Mercy?”

Dr. Ziegler smiles, and Amélie notices it is warm, though her probing gaze remains curiously clinical. “An old nickname. From my days with the coven.”

“Coven?”

“Ja.” Dr. Ziegler nods. “Can you sit up?”

“I’m not sure,” Amélie admits. Her body feels heavy like concrete.

“I’ll help you.” Dr. Ziegler bends down to tuck a warm hand until Amélie’s shoulder. “Ready? On three.”

She counts to three, and together, with much groaning, Amélie is able to push herself upright. Finally, she gets a clear view of her surroundings. The room around her is clearly a mixed use space, half personal lab, half medical bay. What Amélie previously guessed was a desk turns out to be a long work bench built into the wall on her right. Its surface is covered in test tubes, beakers, canisters of strange substances, metal instruments, and microscopes. There’s a small chemical hood in the corner, a centrifuge, and an incubator. Three large computer monitors displaying numbers and charts cover the wall above it. On the far end of the bench, a glass laboratory pitcher of pinkish liquid simmers on a portable burner.

The left side of the room, by contrast, looks like a typical doctor’s office. There are two other cots set up alongside her own, one empty, the other rumpled with recent use, both made up with white sheets. There’s a counter with a metal sink and a biohazard disposal box next to a row of glass jars containing sterile swabs, cotton balls, and q-tips. The open-face cabinets mounted on the wall above hold all manner of medical supplies: bandages, wraps, tubing, tape, needles, rubbing alcohol, medicine, and more.

While Amélie surveys the room, Dr. Ziegler props her up with some extra pillows from the closet in the corner.

“I’ve been asking for an adjustable hospital bed for years now, but of course I never get one. It’s not in the budget.”

Amélie nods in sympathy out of habit, but her eyes stray to the plastic IV tube taped to the inside of her left elbow. The liquid running through it is dark crimson like red wine.

“What is this?” she asks.

“A bit of sustenance,” the doctor replies, her tone gently admonishing. “You were completely malnourished when Hana and Lena brought you in. You could’ve starved to death.”

Dread fills Amélie’s heart as she realizes what the liquid flowing through the tubes is. Her bone-gnawing, gut-hollowing hunger has been satiated in a way it hasn’t since…

“I didn’t know vampires could die,” she says. “I thought they were immortal.”

“Immortal? No. There’s no such thing.” The doctor adjusts the collar of her black turtleneck and stuffs her hands into the pockets of her white lab coat. “Although your lifespan will be much longer than a human’s, yes.”

Amélie’s dread grows. “How long?”

Dr. Ziegler shrugs. “Many hundreds of years, I suppose. It depends.”

Amélie swallows thickly. She doesn’t need to ask to know that Dr. Ziegler isn’t a vampire. A steady heartbeat rings in her ears. She can smell the woman’s warm, earthy scent, fresh like soap and sweet like blood. It raises a lot more questions than it answers.

“Where am I?” Amélie asks, slowly.

“Oh, mein Gott, forgive me. I almost forgot.” Dr. Ziegler turns to point up at the wooden crest mounted over the door, what appears to be a downturned sword in the shape of a cross, with a halo over the hilt and two downy wings attached. “You’ve been returned to a clan, the only clan in Geneva, actually.”

“Returned to a clan?” Amélie shakes her head in confusion. “What do you mean? What is a clan?”

The doctor’s expression goes curiously blank for a moment. “Then it’s as I thought,” she murmurs. “You weren’t sired.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“No, you wouldn’t. There was nobody there to care for you after you turned.” Amélie’s expression darkens, and Dr. Ziegler reads it expertly. “I think I’d best leave the rest of the explaining to the clan’s patriarch. He wants to speak with you as soon as this bag is empty.” Dr. Ziegler taps the plastic IV bag of blood hanging next to the bed.

“Is he a vampire, too?” Amélie asks.

“Yes. A clan is always composed of vampires and their guests.”

Amélie’s mouth twists. “I don’t want to see him.”

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice,” the doctor says, with a tight smile, and returns to her workbench. “Rest up while you can, Amélie.”

 

V v v v v V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: *Dokkaebi are mischievous creatures from Korean folklore, notable as magical tricksters with different charisms who are said to be spirits transformed from mundane household items as opposed to spirits of the dead. 
> 
> More on Hana's particular situation later.


	3. The Blood of Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 11.25.17  
> The saga continues...  
> ~enjoy!

Tracer enters Angela’s lab with a swagger in her step. Her choppy brown hair is windblown, and her outfit is loud. Today the ensemble is a long, teal hoodie with fleecy yellow leggings and orange running shoes. A satisfied smirk has taken up residence on her freckle-splashed face. She looks utterly pleased with herself.

“Can you believe our luck?” she asks, angling a shoulder in Amélie’s direction. “Finding that one when we did? She might’a killed someone if we hadn’t. Nearly took Hana’s head off she was so bloody famished.”

Dr. Ziegler sets her tablet atop a stack of medical journals on her desk. Her workbench is strewn with empty food wrappers and coffee cups. A carton of cigarettes has spilled onto a binder of test notes. Her head is pounding, but she’s no closer now than she was 10 hours ago to resolving the flaws in her latest chemical formula.

“Bragging to Winston wasn’t enough for you?” Angela swivels in her chair and arches a brow.

“Nah, luv.” Tracer winks. “Thought I’d better pay you a visit and see how you’re getting on.”

“Just fine, actually.” Angela reaches for a lukewarm cup of half-drained coffee and takes a sip. “The Coptic necromancy text you brought me last week was a huge help, thank you.”

Lena shrugs, but her blush is unmistakable. “I just, yunno, saw it sitting on the shelf at the public library and thought to myself, ‘oi, Tracer, betcha Mercy would make good use of a book like that!’ So I grabbed it straight away.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah,” Lena rubs her neck, “something like that.”

“Well, it was an incredibly rare find,” Angela says kindly. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank me, Doc. All in a day’s work.”

“Of course.”

Lena smiles bashfully, and rocks back on the balls of her feet. Angela can only think of how much she still looks like a kid, all wide-eyed and exuberant. With a wistful sigh, Angela reaches for the black, pointed hat wedged against the wall behind her desk lamp and plucks it up. There’s a bit of dust and lint clinging to the wide, circular brim. She wipes it off with a finger. Youth is such a fickle, fleeting thing.

“Hey, Ange?”

She glances up to find Lena staring at Amélie, deeply asleep under a thin blanket on her cot. She tapped the blood IV bag hours ago, but Angela hasn’t had the heart to wake her up.

“Yes?”

“What he’s gonna do with her?”

“Let her stay, I imagine. Just like the others.”

Lena wrinkles her nose. “We’re gonna run out of room at this rate.”

Angela reaches up to fit the old, black hat over her ponytail and tugs it down until it’s snug on her head. “We don’t have much choice.”

“Oi!” Lena says, eyes lighting up. “You look like a proper witch now, doncha luv?”

Angela twists the brim a bit to the left. “I haven’t worn this thing in ages.”

“Well, it looks sharp! I mean, not that the lab coat doesn’t.” Lena winces as she fumbles for words. “You look mint in anything you wear, really.”

Angela smiles. “Thank you.”

“I’d better go,” Lena says, checking her watch. “Emily’s expecting me back at one. I only stopped by to tell you boss man wants to see the new girl.”

“Oh,” Angela says, “right away?”

“That’s what he said.”

The doctor stands, forgetting about the hat momentarily, and turns about aimlessly, looking lost. “I haven’t even found her something to wear.”

“What’s wrong with the sweater she has on?”

“It’s filthy.”

“Well, she looks about your size…” Lena squints at the woman on the bed. “Maybe lend her something of yours?”

Angela pauses to consider this. “I suppose that would work. But I haven’t got much in my closet that isn’t business attire.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers, luv.” Tracer winks as she heads for the door. “She’ll manage.”

“She’ll have to,”Angela murmurs, and begins a mental inventory of the few clean clothes she has remaining in her messy closet upstairs.  

 

V v v v v V

 

Dr. Ziegler wakes Amélie and runs her through a quick check-out routine.

“Be polite, and respectful,” she says, tapping Amélie’s vitals into her tablet. “He’s 800 years old and not particularly patient.”

Amélie’s jaw drops. “800?!”

The doctor waves a hand, as though she were reciting very routine information. “He served in one of the last crusades, was sired in Constantinople, took over the clan after his mentor died in one of those Reformation witch hunts.” Her expression clouds. “That’s all you need to know for now.”

Shocked into silence, Amélie quickly dons the clothes Dr. Ziegler has left folded for her on the cot and follows her out of the lab for the first time since arriving. She’s immediately surprised to find herself not in a house, or a mansion, as she had expected, but rather in the atrium of an old, rectangular building. A central stairwell surrounded by a dark wooden banister climbs up and down several floors, and all along the perimeter of the space is an open corridor lined with doors.

“Où est-on?” Amélie asks, bewildered.

“Oh, right.” The doctor stops outside the doorway, shaking her head as if to clear it of cobwebs. “We’re in an apartment building on Rue de Berne. Very near the lake, actually.”

“An _apartment_ building?”

“Well…yes.” Dr. Ziegler bites her lip and chews it pensively for a moment. “But you’ll get one of these rooms all to yourself.”

Amélie is not mollified in the least. “Aren’t vampires supposed to live in spooky mansions?”

The doctor glances sidelong at her. “Would _you_ rather live in a spooky mansion?”

“Maybe I would,” Amélie retorts. “At least the atmosphere would be more appropriate.”

Dr. Ziegler sniffs, but a ghostly smile graces her soft features. “I’m not much for cobwebs and gothic architecture myself, but feel free to decorate your room how you like.”

She leads Amélie down the corridor to the right, white lab coat swirling behind her like a duster. Amélie watches the way her blonde ponytail bobs with each step, mesmerized, somewhat, by the messy, disheveled grace of Dr. Ziegler’s hair. Her own is blacker than night. It’s thick and straight and runs through her fingers like silk strands. It doesn’t frizz or curl like the doctor’s. It doesn’t swoop around her face like a golden frame. Like a halo.

Amélie is envious.

Dr. Ziegler rounds the banister onto the stairs. “This way.”

“Where are we going?”

“Upstairs.”

“I can see that.”

“Then why ask?”

Amélie rolls her eyes. “Do you find my questions irritating, Doctor?”

“Irritating? No. Simply unnecessary.” Dr. Ziegler’s heels click against the creaky wooden steps. “We’ll make sure to answer all your questions after the interview.”

They fall into a tense silence as they continue to climb the staircase. At the top, two flights up, Dr. Ziegler leads the way straight across the herringbone landing to a set of plain double doors. There are no guards or cameras outside, nothing to indicate its importance. Amélie strains her enhanced hearing, but her effort is met mostly with silence. The sounds of a bed frame creaking and a refrigerator humming carry up from the floor below.

“It’s quiet,” Amélie says.

“It’s daytime,” Dr. Ziegler replies, and knocks on the door.

“Eintreten!” calls a booming voice.

The doctor takes a step back. “Go on in,” she says, beckoning.

Amélie spares her a dubious glance, then steels her nerves, pushes the door open, and steps through into a dark, dusty chamber.

 

V v v v v V

 

As the patriarch of a rather old and important clan, Reinhardt normally makes a point of questioning feral vampires quite thoroughly, but he knows immediately who the woman in front of him is.

“You’re the ballerina who ate her husband,” he says, by way of greeting.

Amélie Lacroix tugs nervously at the hem of her borrowed white blouse. He observes, through his good eye, that it’s just a touch short. Probably one of Angela’s, the saint.

“Oui,” she replies. “I am.”

“You caused quite a stir in Paris.”

Amélie scowls. “C’est vrai.”

Adjusting the front of his frock-collar coat, Reinhardt stands from his velvet reading chair, drawing himself up to his considerable height. He approaches her carefully. Amélie is a thin whip of a woman, slender through the arms and legs, though she’s buxom where it counts. She’d make a deadly predator, in another era.

“I was there in Paris when the news broke,” he says. “A terrible tragedy.”

Amélie’s eyes narrow, but she says nothing.

Reinhardt studies her expression until he finds the loathing there, tempered with a touch of cold fury, all of it pointed inward like the tip of a knife against her breast. Her back is ramrod straight, sharp chin tilted up. He had expected her to put up more of a fight, to act out some of her anger and grief through petulance, but Reinhardt Wilhelm, ex-crusader, 200 cm of hulking muscle even in his old age, is a commanding figure. Even the lowest of the low exercise restraint in his company.  

He reaches back and runs a hand along the top of the wooden mantelpiece. A fire roars in the hearth below. It’s the only source of light in his cozy library with the heavy curtains drawn.

“What do you know about vampires?” he asks, amiably, like one might start up a conversation about the weather.

Amélie shrugs. Her hands find their way into the pockets of her steel grey slacks. Also a touch short, he notes. He’ll have to call the tailor.

“Only what I’ve read in books or seen in movies,” she says, “and what I’ve...learned through experience.”

Reinhardt purses his lips. “But you know nothing of our politics, our history, or our lore.”

Amélie shakes her head, golden gaze fixed on the Persian rug under her feet.

“If you had been sired properly,” he says, “you would not have killed your husband.” Amélie twitches, expression clouding with anguish, and Reinhardt presses on. “Common law dictates that the vampire who turned you should have stayed behind to oversee your rebirth and guide you through the early months. There are ways to feed without killing, ways to disguise your fangs and control your cravings. None of this knowledge was passed onto you. You were left to fend for yourself without any idea what was happening to your body. You didn’t recognize the signs of bloodlust until it was too late, and that, mein spatz, was not your fault.”

The woman in front of him seems to wilt. The rigid set of her spine melts, and she bows forward, hand flying over her mouth, eyes brimming with tears of pain and anger.

“Mon dieu,” she whispers, steady voice choked. “Pardonne moi, mon amour. S'il te plaît. Je suis désolée. Je suis… Je suis vraiment désolée...”

Reinhardt crosses the space and touches her shoulder gently, guiding her toward one of several wingback chairs situated in a semi circle around the fire. She doesn’t throw him off. She seems, for the moment, as pliable as a bit of wet river clay.

“Come,” he says. “Sit. There will be time for grief later. Right now I have more I must tell you.”

Amélie drops into the chair and wipes at her eyes. “What more could you possibly have to tell me?”

“It’s about your rebirth.” Reinhardt takes the chair beside her. “You must tell me how you were turned.”

Amélie takes a deep breath to compose herself, though her eyes continue to stream. “I… I was...attacked. In a dark alley. I didn’t see his face.”

“It was a man?”

“Oui.” Amélie sniffs delicately. “He had a rough voice. He said cruel things.” She shudders. “That is all I know.”

Reinhardt leans forward and clasps his hands together on one knee. “Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything at all?”

Amélie’s brow crinkles in concentration. “I’m not sure if… I might’ve been imagining things-”

“-Tell me.” Reinhardt’s gaze is fixed intently on hers.

“I saw his hand when he grabbed me... It was like smoke.”

The elder vampire shoots to his feet and paces to the fire, hands clasped behind his back. For nearly a minute he says nothing. Amélie dries her eyes on her sleeve as she waits.

“Reaper,” he murmurs, at length.

“Pardon?” Amélie says.

“A dissident.” He waves a hand. “A conversation for another time.”

“But-”

Reinhardt turns, silver beard bristling. “-I’m not going to sugar coat things, Ms. Lacroix. As a feral vampire trespassing on my jurisdiction, you have three options. You may either: join my clan, return to Paris and join one of the clans there, or, if you refuse, I will be forced to kill you here and now. Which would you prefer?”

Amélie blinks away her shock. “I…”

“Choose carefully, my dear. Allegiances are binding.”

“Are there not other clans in other cities?”

“This is not a travel agency, Ms. Lacroix, and you are not a vampire in good standing with the community. I am giving you three options, and three options only. Which will it be?”

Amélie hesitates. She thinks of Paris and the apartment overlooking the Seine. She thinks of the sweet, rich taste of her husband’s blood. She thinks of her smeared, crimson face in the bathroom mirror.

“I’ll stay here,” she says quickly.

“Are you certain?”

She nods.

“Then by the blood bestowed unto me by my sire, Balderich von Adler, I name you, Amélie Lacroix, a member of the Kreuzritter clan. Et in hoc nomen semper fidelis.” Reinhardt extends a hand. “Stand and roll up your sleeve.”

“My sleeve?” Amélie asks, confused.

“Yes, on your right arm.”

Amélie complies. She stands and rolls her sleeve to her elbow. Reinhardt reaches out to hold her wrist. He closes his eyes, weathered face pinched in concentration, and lays the palm of his right hand over the inside center of her forearm.

“Hoc signum gerunt bona fide, filia mea,” he intones. “Portare sic valeam.”

A sharp, burning pain flares under the press of his palm, and Amélie cries out sharply, but his grip is like iron. She cannot wriggle away. After nearly three seconds, the burn subsides on its own and he removes his hands. All that remains of the ritual is a black mark stamped into her skin, the same sigil she’d seen over the door in the lab earlier. It’s the crest of the Kreuzritter clan, she supposes, a winged sword with a halo suspended over its downturned hilt.

Amélie stares at it. Reinhardt claps her on the shoulder.

“Welcome to the family,” he says, and presses a previously camouflaged intercom button on the mantle. “Athena?”

A computer AI responds immediately. _“How can I help, Herr Windhelm?”_

“Could you please get Satya for me?”

_“One moment, please.”_

There’s a beep on the line, and then a sleepy, female voice answers. _“Yes? What is it?”_

“Would you please come escort our newest addition to her quarters?”

There’s a meaningful pause. _“...Fine. But give me a minute to get dressed. It’s the middle of the day.”_

“I’ll send her back down to Angela’s lab. Take your time. Oh, and show her the ropes, will you? Full tour.”

_“Can’t Angela do this since she’s apparently already awake?”_

“I’d like Ms. Lacroix to meet another young vampire like yourself.”

_“I’m 78 years old.”_

Reinhardt rolls his eyes at Amélie and turns back to the intercom. “Well, you’re younger than me or Angela, so please, if you would.”

_“I’ll show her how the blood bank works. The rest will have to wait until after nightfall.”_

Reinhardt sighs. “Very well, thank you Satya. I’ll send her downstairs now.” He flicks off the intercom and turns back to Amélie. “Are you alright to find your way back on your own?”

“Oui.” Amélie nods.

“Excellent.” Reinhardt looks almost jovial as he claps his massive hands together. “Please see yourself out. Satya will be along shortly to pick you up. She’s a fine woman. I think you’ll like her.”

Amélie is dubious, and more than a little shell-shocked, as she makes her way out of the library. She returns to the doctor’s lab to find her piping fresh blood into a row of smoking test tubes at her cluttered workbench.

“How old are you really?” Amélie asks, brow furrowed.

“Trade secret,” Dr. Ziegler says, with a friendly wink, and returns to her work without missing a single beat.

Nothing here is apparently what it seems.

 

V v v v v V


	4. The Blood of Messengers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11.28.17  
> Now I'm butchering Korean! When will I stop??  
> ~enjoy

Lúcio pushes another rum and Coke across the bar. “And then what happened?”

Hana slams her fist into her palm. “And then I knocked her out like, biiitch who do you think you are? You don’t mess with D.Va!”

“That’s what you’re calling yourself now?”

Hana takes a sip through her straw. “Yup!” She shoots him a cocky, full-fanged grin. “You like?”

Lúcio laughs as he reaches for another glass to polish. He’s in a kelly green sweatshirt and matching headband today. His long, bleached hair is done up in Jamaican twists that he’s tied into a thick bun on the back of his head. A pair of silver rings glimmer from his bottom lip.

“It definitely suits you,” he says.

“Hell yeah it does.” Hana glances up at the football match playing on the TV screen in the corner. It takes her a second to remember she doesn’t know or care who’s playing. “Dokkae likes it too. I think I’ll keep it.”

“I give it a week,” Lúcio says, with a good-natured shake of his head. “Two tops.”

“Whatever, loser. This one’s sticking.”

“By the way, does your dokkaebi thing have an actual name?”

 _I am not a ‘thing’_ , an indignant voice hisses in the back of Hana’s mind. _Tell that disrespectful byung-shin-a who I am! Teach him to respect his elders._

“Oh, he definitely has a name,” she drawls, tracing the rim of her glass with a finger, “but you might legit have nightmares if I say it out loud, so just Dokkae-nim for short, ‘kay?”

Lúcio blinks. “Uhhh, okay.”

“Trust me.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” He pauses for second, and tilts his head to the side. He snaps his fingers at the dark ceiling. “Oh, shit, this is my jam. Brb!”

He sails back into the kitchen, presumably to turn up the volume of whatever song is pumping through the speakers. Hana sips her drink idly. It’s two o’clock on a Thursday and she has nothing to show for her day so far except a boring stint in the gym and a brief, uninspired livestream of some new FPS game that isn’t shaping up to be terribly interesting. Lúcio’s flashy, downtown bar is empty while he cleans up for another night. The glass countertop still glows blue, but without the bustle of customers the space feels hollow. It’s only the two of them and a couple of cooks in the back, chopping up vegetables for later. Hana sighs and looks over at the vacant DJ booth, set up in the far corner of the bar. Lúcio will clear the tables out for the weekend and do shows Friday and Saturday night. Tonight, however, it will just be the boring business crowd.

The volume of the music overhead jumps up a couple decibels and Lúcio comes sashaying back out behind the bar with a wide grin on his face.

“This is the stuff!” he says, and claps his hands with the beat.

Hana rolls her eyes. She starts to open her mouth, starts to say some smart-ass thing that’ll get them both into a verbal jousting match, but then, without warning, the front door of the bar bangs open. Lúcio freezes mid dance and looks up. Hana frowns.

 _Trouble,_ the voice in her mind cautions.

It’s a man in a long, dark trench coat and a wide-brimmed fedora. His pale face is nearly obscured behind his popped collar, but two distinct amber irises peer out from beneath the shadow of his hat. Suddenly, the throbbing music seems a little too loud. The tension in the empty room is palpable.

“Êtes-vous perdu, monsieur?” Lúcio asks. The courtesy in his voice is thinly veiled over a warning. “We’re closed right now.”

“The door was locked,” Hana whispers, across the bar, but Lúcio only glances at her.

His loose posture is wound up tighter than a bear trap. Hana slowly, discretely reaches for her bangmangi.

 _We’ll need the little cannon,_ Dokkae urges.

She grabs the shaft of her baton, focuses her thoughts, and feels the familiar grip of her light gun morph into her hand. She’s careful to keep it concealed under her oversized denim jacket.

_It’s called a gun, old man._

_I still don’t understand why a bow wouldn’t suffice. I am excellent with a bow._

_Too slow. Too clunky,_ Hana thinks, and shakes her head slightly. _Do I look like Tomb Raider to you?”_

Dokkae is quiet for a moment, then, reluctantly. _No. You’re a good deal shorter._

Hana pouts. _I don’t know whether I should be happy that you’ve been paying attention to my games or insulted that you’re making fun of my height._

_…It’s not too late to use the bow. We could even do a crossbow, if you like. I know how to use those, too._

_Give it up, grandpa._

_That’s grandpa-nim to you._

Across the club, the vampire in the entryway removes his hat, revealing a gaunt and wholly unfamiliar face. His cheeks are sunken. Dark circles underscore his glittering eyes, and his white blonde hair is slicked back over his skull. He sports a cleft chin, a hook nose, and thin lips. He looks, Hana realizes, like a hawk.

“Show me your crest,” Lúcio barks, widening his stance.

“I don’t have a crest,” the man snarls, in perfect English, and Hana is not surprised to hear that he has a reedy, grating voice.

“Are you feral?” Lúcio asks.

“Not feral,” the man retorts, “ _free_.”

Lúcio pulls a handgun out from beneath the bar and sets it on the glass. “Then you’re _free_ to leave my bar.”

The vampire glowers at him, amber gaze burning with hatred. “You must be Lúcio. I have a message for you.”

“Who sends mangy ferals like you to deliver messages?” Hana taunts, with a sneer.

He glances at her, and recognition dawns for the first time on his sallow face. “Wait, I know you. You work for the Kreuzritter clan.”

Hana clams up, expression suddenly guarded.

“She’s a customer,” Lúcio snaps.

The vampire’s gaze flicks back. “I thought you were closed?”

Hana reaches out instinctively to touch Lúcio’s wrist and he swallows down his heated rebuttal, taking a moment to compose himself. “Say your piece and get out of my bar.”

The vampire regards him through narrowed eyes. Hana can see the cogs turning in his head. Her muscles tense. She’s already plotted five attack strategies in her head by the time he speaks again.

“Since you’re here,” he says, turning to address Hana, “this message is for you: Reaper knows the Kreuzritters are hunting down free vampires, and he’s not happy about it. Tell Herr Wilhelm that Reaper doesn’t take kindly to race traitors. He can stop his genocide now, or face the consequences later.”

“Fine,” Hana grits. “Is that all?”

The vampire licks his lips and considers her cautiously. “You’re Hana Song, right? The kid who took down Koga-nim?”

In a flash, Hana’s glare evaporates. She beams at him, sharp teeth glistening blue in the light from the bar.

“Why?” she simpers. “Are you a fan?”

The vampire frowns in confusion. “What?”

“C’mon, don’t be shy!” She flicks a bit of hair over her shoulder and hops down off her stool. “Want an autograph? I’ll even let you take a picture.”

“Hana,” Lucio hisses, “what are you doing?”

“Um, trying to maintain my public image? Chill out.”

“There’s no way this guy uses social media.”

Hana pouts. “You’re really cramping my style here, oppa.”

The vampire growls, baring his teeth. “What the fuck are you guys talking about?”

“Oh, sorry!” Hana smiles indulgently and bats her lashes. “Didn’t mean to keep you waiting!”

Furious, confused, the vampire takes a menacing step closer. “What the fuck-”

In the blink of an eye, Hana whips out her light gun and nails him through the heart with two perfectly placed beam rounds. Lúcio flinches and swears in Portuguese. The vampire gapes at her stunned for several seconds. A shaky hand twitches up to clutch at his chest where a dark spot has begun to form in the front of his coat, but it’s too late. He staggers backwards, one step, then two, and bashes his hip against a metal railing. The light fades from his amber eyes, dimming like extinguished lanterns as he slides down onto the concrete floor. No sooner has he drawn his last, rasping breath than his pale skin begins to turn black.

“Critical hit!” Hana crows.

“Merda,” Lúcio mumbles.

He slips around to the back again to switch off the loud, thumping music, and when he returns, Hana’s bangmangi has returned to its pink baton form. A lucky rabbit’s foot dangles off one end. She twirls it expertly around in her hand and clips it to her belt.

“Thanks for the message,” she sneers, at the body carbonizing on the floor.

The sudden silence in the bar is almost oppressive.

“You know, we could’ve squeezed him for information,” Lúcio says, tone admonishing.

 _The bartender is right,_ Dokkae interjects. _We could’ve had a lovely afternoon torturing him to death._

“Both of you shut up,” Hana says, and Lúcio arches a brow. “These galvanized Reaper goons don’t know jack shit. We’ve tried questioning them before.”

Hana slides back onto the stool and resumes stirring her drink while Lúcio glances ruefully at the broom leaning against the beer tap. The football match on the screen in the corner has concluded and the announcers are sitting around a big wooden desk, smiling and discussing the player stats. It’s so mundane, it’s almost as if nothing has happened, as if her employer hasn’t just been threatened by a murderous group of radical dissidents.

Hana picks the straw out of her glass and gulps down almost half of her cocktail. Next, she pulls out her phone and opens up a new text message to Lena.

“By the way, you got any raw steak lying around?” she asks, thumbs flying over the screen. “Something I could take to go?”

Lúcio rubs his neck. “Won’t you look weird walking around town with a baggie of raw meat?”

Without looking up, Hana taps her blue baseball cap with her index finger. “My gamtu can keep me out of sight until I get home.”

“Convenient.”

“What’s the point of being possessed if you don’t gain a few magic tricks on the side?” Hana winks, and Lúcio smiles back.

“I’ll pack you a tupperware,” he says.

“I’m just gonna throw it away.”

“It’s fine.” Lúcio turns to head into the kitchen. “Back in a sec.”

Dokkae tugs irritably at her thoughts. _You forgot to ask him for salt._

Hana sighs. _Sorry._

_You always forget._

_You’ll survive without a little salt, grandpa. Calm down._

_You know, I could’ve gone to live in a perfectly nice sword instead of putting up with a brat like you._

_No one’s stopping you._

Dokkae emits a vibrating sensation that’s vaguely reminiscent of a disgruntled “harumph” and Hana feels a warm tingle run up and down her spine.

 _Too much effort... I’ve grown kind of attached to this strange, fleshy vessel_.

Hana smiles.

She finishes her message to Tracer,  hits ‘send’ on her phone, and opens up the call log, scrolling through names until she finds Winston’s. It’s time to tell the rest of the clan what’s up. Hana throws back the remainder of her drink in a single go and dials Winston’s number.

 

V v v v v V

 

Across town, Lena’s phone buzzes with a new message on the bedside table in a dark room. She twitches toward it on instinct, but a pale hand clutches at the roots of her hair, holding her still.

“You promised,” Emily purrs.

Lena sucks in a sharp breath. Her naked body glistens with sweat in the candlelight, barely enough for her to see by. It’s far more than Emily needs.

“B-but, it could be-”

“-If you say ‘important’ I swear I’ll bite your tongue off.”

Lena chuckles nervously. “None of that, luv.”

Sharp canines nip at her clavicle, and Lena twitches, a gasp catching in her throat. A smooth, room-temperature tongue laves over her breast, flicking up over a pert nipple. Lena moans, fingers twisting in damp sheets. The weight of her lover presses her down into the mattress, pinning her fast. She doesn’t mind being pinned so much, she’s learned. Not when it’s Emily doing the pinning.

“At least, wait until I’m finished,” Emily implores, lips wandering over flushed skin, pausing at intervals to lick and suck. “At least give me that.”

Lena sighs out, hips rolling against Emily’s abdomen. “Alright.”

“Alright?”

“Yeah.”  

A hand wriggles between their bodies. Eager fingers press against Lena’s core, a cool contrast to throbbing heat. Emily’s body warms considerably when she’s aroused, but so does Lena’s. Her engineered heart beats harder and faster than any normal heart could.

“You’re so busy lately,” Emily murmurs between kisses. Her teasing nips have begun to grow sharp and hungry. “You’re supposed to be _my_ thrall, but I feel like you’re always gone on missions.”

Tracer whines and arches her back. “I-I just s-slept here yesterday.”

“Mm, you were so tired you drooled on my pillow.”

“Fuck!” Lena’s eyes screw shut and her arms circle Emily’s back, hands clutching skin. Not much longer now.

“Tell me you missed me,” Emily demands.

“I-I missed you.”

“Tell me you missed me ‘baby’.”

“I-I- fuck… I missed you, baby. I really, really missed you.”

Emily suckles at her jugular, the threat of puncture looming large. It pushes Lena’s panting, seizing body to the brink. It’ll all be worth it for the sound Emily makes when she takes her first taste of Lena’s sweet, endorphin-rich blood. Lena aches to be bitten, so much it’s embarrassing now to recall how much she once feared the shadowy creatures that stalk the night. Now she only fears losing the one she calls her own.

“Close?” Emily whispers, breathless, hungry.

“Very,” Tracer replies, and pulls their mouths together for a sharp, stinging kiss.

Emily swipes a trickle of blood from Lena’s lips with the tip of her tongue.

The sound she makes is worth it.

 

V v v v v V

 

Outside, in the corridor, Amélie smells a familiar tangle of scents as she passes by. Dread looms large and black in the back of her mind. She winces, slow heartbeat speeding slightly. It takes a full two seconds, and a stern shake of her her head, to bring her panicked thoughts back to the present.

Beside her, dressed in an ornately patterned, navy blue sari, Satya’s nose twitches. “Angela has soundproofed most of the rooms, thank god, but she can’t do much about the smell. Doors open, after all.”

“Soundproofed…?” Amélie starts to ask, then trails off when she realizes why the information was volunteered. “Oh, I see.”

“Some of the vampires here keep thralls, and they do like to play with their food.”

“Pardon, but what are thralls?”

Satya glances sideways at her. “You really know nothing at all, do you?”

Amélie’s lips twist with displeasure.

She does not, contrary to Reinhardt’s predictions, like Satya Vaswani very much at all.

“The blood bank is here,” Satya continues coolly, approaching what resembles a small, high tech vending machine installed in the plaster wall. “It operates more or less like a dumbwaiter. You press a button here, and it’ll retrieve a packet of blood for you from the refrigerator in the basement. It’ll heat it for you, too. Don’t panic.”

Amélie studies the machine. It has a metal dispensing drawer, and, above it, a glowing glass screen with a series of round, silver buttons along the side. She’s struck suddenly with the impression of a futuristic ATM.

“You can choose the blood type you’d prefer, but we don’t always have it in stock. Do _not_ come whining to Winston or I about it.”

“Who is Winston?”

Satya sniffs. “The man who designed this machine.”

Amélie’s eyes widen with interest. “Is that so?”

“Yes. You’ll meet him soon enough.”

Satya sweeps off down the hall, and Amélie, who was a celebrated ballerina in Paris and the elegant young wife of a decorated military man, can’t help but feel dwarfed by her presence. The woman carries herself with a sense of unparalleled superiority. The several extra inches of height only help in that regard.

“This is your room.”

Satya gestures to a plain wooden door at the end of the corridor. A tarnished, brass ‘17’ hangs from the front, just above a glass peephole. She produces a small key, seemingly from thin air, and hands to it Amélie.

“Keep this on your person at all times. We only have one other copy. If you want more, go get them made at the locksmith downtown.” Satya starts to turn away, making to leave, then seems to remember something. “Oh, one more thing. Your apartment is furnished, but not stocked. If you need any...food, you’ll find it in the community kitchen on the ground floor.”

“I wasn’t aware vampires needed to eat human food,” Amélie says, confused.

Satya looks as if she has bitten off something sour by mistake. “They don’t. Some are still a bit nostalgic for their former lives.”

“Understandable,” Amélie says.

Satya’s expression twists in such a way that she looks as if she’d be hard pressed to think of anything _less_ understandable. “I’m going back to bed. If you need anything, go see Angela in the clinic.”

With a swish of silk fabric, Satya turns on her heel and stalks off down the hall. Amélie scowls at her back, then turns her attention to the key in her hand. It takes three tries, and a vigorous jiggling of the old door handle to get it unlocked.

Inside she finds a small studio apartment with a tiny kitchenette and a door that leads into a cramped, tile bathroom. It’s a far cry from the luxury she enjoyed in Paris, and a good deal more austere, but she’s spent a month on the run, sleeping in the worst hostels Western Europe has to offer, and even, at times, outdoors in the cold. It’s been a long, dispiriting fall to the bottom of the well. She’ll make do with this.

Amélie runs her fingers over the pockmarked wooden surface of the table in her tiny dining space. An wardrobe across the room sits empty, drawers out, waiting to filled. A full-sized bed made up with black sheets and a thick down comforter is pushed into the corner next to the radiator. A plain, birch nightstand beside it holds a silver reading lamp and a digital clock.

There are only two windows in the unit, both sharing the far wall with the bed, both covered with heavy wooden shutters and flanked on each side with thick drapes. As it is now, the drapes have been pulled open, and thin bars of afternoon sun slice in through the slats in the shutters. It’s the most natural daylight Amélie has seen in days. Her eyes have grown so sensitive that she gets headaches and grows weary in direct sunlight. Even her skin prickles painfully if uncovered.

She sighs and settles down on the bed. It’s surprisingly soft.

“Is this it?” she asks the room. “Is this everything?”

The blank, white walls have nothing to say.

Amélie wipes cool tears from her eyes and lies back against the blankets.

Never in her life has she felt so utterly alone.

 

V v v v v V


	5. The Blood of Angels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 12.3.17  
> Languages butchered in this chapter: German, Swiss German, Chinese. Forgive me.  
> ~enjoy!

It’s late. It’s very late. It’s _too_ late.

Angela swears under her breath as she checks her watch. The cappuccino in her hand nearly sloshes out of its cup as she rounds the banister. She’s moving fast and she’s discombobulated. At this rate, she’s going to trip and spill it all over her white, cashmere sweater. It was perfect for dinner the night before, but this is a disaster waiting to happen.

She halts in the middle of the staircase and, without giving her next action the thought it undoubtedly deserves, chugs downs her coffee.

“Heiß!” she sputters. “Sehr heiß! Gott verdammt!”

Her eyes are streaming as she makes her way to the clinic.

“Guete Morge, Angela!”

Angela freezes in the doorway and stares at the woman smiling from her workbench. She feels like a train of chaos interrupted mid track. Bundled up against the cold morning in black sweats, UGG boots, and a wooly grey cardigan, Dr. Zhou gives her a friendly wave. Her silky, brown hair is pinned up with chopsticks and her black-rimmed glasses are smudged.

“You’re learning Schwitzerdütsch?” Angela rasps, throat raw.

Mae grins. “Ai Sprooch isch nie gnueg!”

“Huh. That’s, uh… Good job.”

“You’re up late,” Mei observes.

“So are you,” Angela says. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Mei sighs contentedly and sips from a steaming mug of… Well, probably blood, Angela guesses.

“I have some data I need to finish analyzing,” Mei says. “I hope you don’t mind that borrowed your computer.”

“Not at all. What kind of data?”

“Last summer’s temperature fluctuations.” She stretches and yawns, pulling her cardigan tighter around her shoulders. “The data set from Nuuk.”

Angela finally notices the query running on one of the computer screens mounted on the wall. The other two hold a collection of graphs and charts that she can’t decipher at a glance, although she does know enough to recognize the map of Greenland. Mei hums cheerfully under her breath and sips from her mug. Her dark eyes look more violet than red in semi-dark lab. A birnbrot sits untouched on a plate atop a stack of Angela’s monthly journals, none of which she’s read. February is almost over. March’s issues will be arriving soon.

“Oh, I saved this for you,” Mei says, nudging the plate with her finger. “I thought you might be hungry when you came in. The Angela I remember always skipped breakfast.”

“And I still do,” Angela sighs, rubbing at her burning throat, “merci.”

Mei giggles. “My pleasure, doctor.”

Angela steps inside and shuts the door behind her. Today’s research will be sensitive, not for careless eyes. She tosses her coat and bag on the nearest cot and chucks her empty paper cup in the trash. Mei follows her movements with a knowing look.

“You didn’t sleep here last night.”

It takes a concerted, conscious effort on Angela’s part not to flinch. She’s always been a rather private person.

“Mm,” she responds, ambiguously.

Mei, however, looks positively giddy. “Did you have a date?”

Angela purses her lips. “Something like that.”

“Tài hǎole! Congratulations!”

“Thanks,” Angela grumbles, feeling more than a little sheepish. “I think.”

Mei leans forward like an excited child, crimson eyes wide. “Did it go well?”

Angela bats her messy bangs out of her face, “I’m late for work, aren’t I?”

Mei squeals with delight and bounces a bit in her seat. Angela grabs a bottle of water out of the mini fridge and sinks into the extra desk chair at the other end of the workbench. Her back hurts. Her throat hurts. Her _head_ hurts. Too much red wine on a weeknight. She almost regrets it.

Mei pushes the birnbrot towards her. Angela uncaps her water and drinks half of it before she even considers taking a bite.

“You missed some excitement at the potluck last night,” Mei says, conversationally. “Winston drank too much of Hana’s watermelon soju and accidentally shifted at the table. He knocked most of the food onto the floor, including Brigitte’s roast.”

“Again? Torbjörn must’ve been furious.”

“Not just Torbjörn, Hana, too! Her face was so red I thought she was going to turn into a tomato! Jesse had to hold both of them back.”

“Mein gott!” Angela laughs as she chews. “I’m actually sorry I missed that. Mm- This is good by the way. This birnbrot.”

“I have more in my room if you’re still hungry.”

“I might actually take you up on that. I’m famished. I have an elixir lying around here somewhere for hangovers, but I can’t drink it on an empty stomach.” Angela finishes the last bite and licks her fingers. “By the way, was Amélie there? I’m worried she isn’t getting out enough.”

Mei’s brow furrows. “Amélie? No, who is she?”

Angela frowns. “The new initiate? Former French ballerina, mid 30s, moody, kind of…hard to miss.” Mei shakes her head and Angela blinks. “You haven’t seen her around at all?”

“I don’t think so,” Mei says.”

“But you’ve been here for weeks.” Mei only shrugs and Angela’s frown deepens.

Now that she’s thinking about it, she can’t actually remember the last time she went to check on Amélie. She’s been completely absorbed in her research, not that it’s much of an excuse. It’s a lousy one, in fact. She’s supposed to be a doctor.

A strange, nervous feeling gnaws at her stomach as she reaches for her tablet. Her fingers skim over the screen for a few minutes, navigating through data, reviewing supply logs.

“Scheiße,” she mutters, reeling back. “She hasn’t used the blood bank.”

Mei’s brows rise. “At all?”

“No,” Angela shakes her head, concern rising. “Not once. Not even a single time. Oh, sohn einer Hündin!”

“Has she been eating?”

“I don’t know,” Angela says, chewing her lip. “Hana found her, she was feral. Half-starved, passed out in the snow… And then when they brought her in she was… Oh, scheiße, I’m an idiot.”

She stands and reaches for her white lab coat. Mei watches in alarm as she gathers up her things, her stethoscope, her tablet, an electronic thermometer.

“Well, she could’ve visited one of the donors, yes?” Mei suggests, hopefully.

“Could she have...? Yes-“ Angela slaps herself on the forehead. “Yes, of course she could’ve. I’m getting ahead of myself.”

Rather than trawl through the logs on her tablet again, Angela reaches over and pounds the silver button built into the wall by the door. Athena responds immediately.

“ _How can I help, Dr. Ziegler?”_

“I need to access patient medical records.”

“ _Alright, authorization code, please.”_

“Mother Mercy.”

“ _Voice key confirmed. Proceed, Dr. Ziegler.”_

Angela clears her throat and straightens her posture. “Can you tell me if Amélie Lacroix has visited any blood donors in the last three weeks?”

_“One moment, please…”_ The system goes silent as it thinks. _“… ... … I don’t see any confirmed visits from Amélie Lacroix. Would you like to try another patient?”_

“Verdammt.” Dread bubbles in Angela’s throat. She swallows it down. “No thanks, Athena. That’ll be all.”

Athena beeps and signs off.

Damnit, she’s too hungover for this! Angela grabs a retractable x-acto knife from the workbench and stuffs it into the pocket of her lab coat.

“What is that for?” Mei asks, eyes widening in alarm. “You’re not really going to-“

“-Just in case,” Angela promises, and hurries out the door.

 

V v v v v V

 

Amélie is slumped over at her little dining table in the dark when a pounding interrupts her solemn reverie. She inclines her head unsteadily toward the sound. Her cloudy mind struggles to make sense of what she’s hearing.

It’s the door. Someone is knocking.

“Entrez!” Amélie calls, hoarsely.

She can’t be bothered to move. Her body is languid and cold. Even blinking takes an effort she can barely fathom.

The pounding continues.

And continues.

And continues.

“Merde,” Amélie hisses. “Go away. Go away!”

The noise won’t stop. Is the door still locked? Amélie can’t remember if she locked it. Her head hurts so much. She braces her hand on the table and tries to stand, but her arm only shakes. She smiles with satisfaction at this accomplishment.

The knocking continues in quick bursts for thirty more seconds or so before, finally, Amélie hears a clicking noise and looks over to see that the lock has unlatched itself. She squints through bleary eyes. Did she just imagine it or did-

The door swings open, flooding the room with light, and from it, like a heavenly vision, emerges an angel dressed in white. Her beautiful face is wreathed in a halo of wispy gold, its finer features touched with shadow. Amélie tries to focus her sight and finds that she cannot. The light from the atrium is blinding.

“Amélie.” The angel steps inside and lets the door close behind her, plunging the room back into darkness. “I’m sorry to disturb you like this so suddenly.”

“Ah, it is only you,” Amélie murmurs. “Bonjour, Dr. Ziegler.”

“Bonjour,” the doctor replies, solemnly. “I wish the circumstances of my visit were better.”

Amélie groans and hunches forward over the table. The top buttons of her white shirt are undone, sleeves rolled up, collar askew. It was crisp once, when the tailor came to deliver her clothes. Whenever that was. She reaches up to brush her dark bangs out of her eyes. A messy ponytail holds the rest of her hair at bay.

“You haven’t been eating,” Dr. Ziegler accuses.

Amélie doesn’t bother lifting her head.

“You haven’t used the blood banks. You haven’t visited any donors in the clinic.

“Non.”

“Why won’t you drink blood?”

Amélie stares at the tabletop, silent.

“You’re not human anymore…”

Amélie still says nothing.

With a sigh, Dr. Ziegler pushes off the wall and stalks forward. Her movements are careful, calculated. She’s nervous. Amélie can smell it in the stale air, and yet, her body betrays none of her trepidation. There is only the swagger of a seasoned and confident scientist, a woman of innumerable years.

Goosebumps rise on Amélie’s pale skin. The doctor’s proximity is complicating things.

“I brought a packet of blood,” Dr. Ziegler says, holding up a clear plastic bag filled with crimson liquid. “It’s warm even. Fresh from the bank.”

Amélie winces and turns her gaze away. The sight of it makes her body throb. She feels acutely nauseous.

Dr. Ziegler abruptly tosses the bag through the air. It lands on the table with a loud smack, and Amélie jumps back in shock.

“Drink,” Ziegler orders.

“Non!”

Amélie swipes her arm across the table, knocking the packet onto the ground. The brief contact of warm plastic against her frigid skin makes her shiver. The doctor expels a rough, frustrated breath.

“Don’t make me drag you upstairs and hook you up to another IV,” she threatens, “because I can, and I will.”

Amélie sneers. “Is that why they call you ‘Mercy’?”

The doctor’s eyes flash. “They call me Mercy because I don’t let my patients die foolish, pointless deaths!”

Amélie’s fingers curl into trembling fists. “Don’t let this visage of humanity fool you, doctor. I’m a monster, not a patient.”

Dr. Ziegler’s eyes soften. “You’re a _vampire_ , Amélie.”

“I’m a murderer,” Amélie spits, eyes growing wet. 

“You have to drink. You have to feed yourself.”

“I cannot stomach the sight of blood. It makes me sick.”

“You’re sick because you’re starving.”

A tear tracks down Amélie’s cheek, cold like winter rain. “Then I'll starve.”

Dr. Ziegler gives her a long, penetrating look. After a minute or so of this stalemate, she straightens up and murmurs something incomprehensible under her breath. The doctor closes her eyes, and licks her lips. Suddenly, Amélie’s head is swimming with images. Not just images, also sounds, smells, sensations, tastes. Everything floods in at once, together, in a swirl: the feel of Gerard’s strong shoulder against her cheek, the taste of the brick in the alley, the clinking of her tooth in the porcelain sink, her husband’s dying groan. Amélie whimpers, tears streaming from both eyes.

“Non,” she pleads. “Please.”

But it keeps coming. Emotions crash over her, wave after wave. Lust, fear, terror, agony, hunger, pleasure, horror, joy. They blend together with the flickering images: Gerard’s body in their bloodstained bed, arm dangling over the side of the mattress like a rag doll. The blood under her fingernails that she licked clean, crying in a public bathroom in Lyon. Prowling through dark neighborhoods in search of house cats to drain, picking the fur out of her teeth.

“Stop!” she cries.

As suddenly as they came on, the memories vanish, and Dr. Ziegler looks stricken.

“…I understand,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

Amélie sobs raggedly into the silence. She’s exhausted and her body hurts tremendously. She’s so dizzy she feels near collapse.

“You’re anemic,” the doctor says. Her voice has softened. “I know you don’t want to, but you need to drink. You’ll feel better once you do.”

“I can’t,” Amélie whispers. “I won’t. You won’t make me.”

Dr. Ziegler advances closer, gaze trained intently on Amélie’s face. “You’re not thinking logically right now.”

“Je m’en fous.”

The doctor leans her hip against the table, expression calculating. “You won't be able to resist the temptation of fresh blood. I’d bet my license on it.”

Amélie watches with baleful eyes as Dr. Ziegler reaches into the pocket of her lab coat and pulls out a green x-acto knife. She pops the blade up with a click and quickly slices it over the pad of her left pointer finger. A red line beads and drips. Amélie watches, transfixed. Her pupils have dilated. Her breathing quickens. The gums surrounding her fangs are throbbing.

Ziegler makes a theatrical show of examining her handiwork.

“Hm, I seem to have cut my finger,” she says, turning the digit this way and that. Her blue eyes level Amélie with a challenge as she extends her arm, bringing the fresh cut within inches from Amélie’s nose. “I’m afraid it might get infected.” The corner of her mouth quirks up. “Lick it for me.”

Amélie pants. The scent is overwhelming. Her mind goes blank. Her jaw goes slack. She leans forward like a puppet on strings to accept the doctor’s blood into her mouth.

The taste is...indescribable. Too good to put into words. Like a drop of heaven. So sweet, so rich, so _satisfying_.

Amélie moans quietly in the back of her throat and strokes her tongue up the length of Dr. Ziegler’s warm finger. Something else is taking over. Something greedy. Without warning, she swallows the doctor’s finger up to the knuckle and sucks hard. Ziegler gasps and tries to pull back, but Amélie bites down hard, trapping her in place. The doctor's other hand slaps flat against the table, seeking support.

“Fuck,” she grits, pitching forward unsteadily. “A-Amélie, let go-!”

Amélie, however, is beyond verbal communication. She lunges out and grabs the doctor’s arm, yanking her closer. Weakened, and growing woozy, Ziegler loses her footing and trips forward. Amélie pounces on her, leaving the chair overturned behind her. She takes Dr. Ziegler in her arms and pins her up against the wall, licking a hungry line up and over the doctor’s exposed collarbone.

“Amélie!” Ziegler protests. “Amélie don’t-”

Amélie can’t hear her. The doctor smells _incredible._

She ignores the desperate hands tearing at the shirt on her back, presses her face against Dr. Ziegler’s neck, and bites into the main of hot blood pulsing just beneath the surface of her skin.

The doctor’s cry dissolves into an incoherent groan.

Amélie sucks until her mouth is filled with blood and her slow, cold heart is racing. Her body flushes with heat, tingling, rushing, _soaring_. The edge is already beginning to dull. The pain that has been her constant companion for months begins to fade away.

This feels _so good._

But something breaks her concentration. Shaking hands grip the sides of her head, wrenching her away from her feast with unnatural strength. Sharp, guttural words ring in her ear. German? Amélie can’t remember why that would be important. She can’t remember anything at all.

A powerful blast sends her flying across the room, and she has barely a second, a moment at best, to glimpse the terrifying face of Dr. Ziegler glowing in a red halo of light against the kitchen wall, before she smashes against the wardrobe and sinks down into unconsciousness.

 

V v v v v V

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Angela is a native speaker of both high German and Swiss German, owing to her childhood split between the two countries.


	6. The Blood of Allies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 12.8.17  
> I'll go ahead and leave this here. Have a good weekend, everyone!  
> ~enjoy

It’s Winston who finds Angela slumped on the ground in the corridor, puncture wounds visible, streaks of blood drying on her neck. The collar of her white sweater is stained, and her skin is ashen. Beside her, sprawled out in a heap, lies the culprit, blood still rimmed around her pale mouth. It’s the last thing he was expecting to find on his way to the kitchen. He makes a noise of alarm into his coffee mug, sets it aside on the wooden banister, and hurries over to her.

“Angela,” he crouches down and cups her cheek, turning her head this way and that, “Angela, can you hear me?”

Her pale lashes flutter. “W-Winston?”

“Hey,” he smiles. “You okay?”

The doctor’s eyes peel open and he notes their hazy quality, the way she blinks to clear them. Her pupils fail to adjust to the light in the hallway. She sniffs once, sharply, like someone roused from an unexpected nap, and straightens up a bit. Her expression is disconcertingly blank. For a moment, she seems not to remember where she is.

“Did she bite you?” Winston asks, nodding at the woman crumpled on the floor beside her.

“Oh, umm…” Angela’s head lolls to the side, following his gaze. “Yes... She did.”

“Hm.” Winston strokes his goatee. “I don’t recognize her.”

“Amélie Lacroix,” Angela says, and sniffs again. “Um...newly initiated. Forgive me, my head feels like a bowl of old muesli.”

“She must have strong venom to get to _you_ ,” he observes. “Which...how _did_ she get to you?”

Angela makes a vague, circular gesture with her hand. “Poor decision making on my part. And yes, she does indeed have a particularly potent venom. Caught me by surprise.”

“Who sired her?”

“Reaper.”

Winston makes a face. “More than one of his orphans have had strange abilities.”

“Well, if my hypothesis is correct, he’s not your average, run of the mill vampire, so that stands to reason.”

“Ah,” Winston perks up, brown eyes widening, “you think you’ve identified him?”

“I think I have a hunch,” Angela says. “Here, help me up. I’ve got to get her to the clinic before she wakes up and attacks someone else.”

Winston obliges and slings Angela’s arm over his broad shoulder. Her fingers fist tightly in his ugly, argyle sweater vest as he stands, lifting her with him. Her legs are still unsteady. He watches with some concern as she props herself against the wall. Angela tries to straighten her hair with quivering hands.

He peers back down at the woman on the floor. A closer inspection reveals more details that the first did not. Her white button up and slacks are rumpled. Her black hair is greasy. He sees the sallow quality of her skin, pale and cold. Her lips look nearly blue, and Winston is vaguely sickened by the sight of it.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asks.

Angela’s answer is clipped. “Acute bloodlust due to malnutrition.”

“Malnutrition?” he says, surprised. “But we have plenty of blood here.”

“Which wouldn’t be an issue if she would fucking drink it,” Angela snaps, then closes her eyes, and sighs. “Sorry. I’m a little rattled.”

“It’s alright.” He shoves his hands in the pockets of his green, corduroy trousers and smiles easily. “We’ve all been there.”

“What self-respecting doctor lets herself get _bitten_ by her own patient?” Angela pinches the bridge of her nose. “It’s been a hell of a morning. I think I’m losing my edge.”

“Nonsense.”

“Am I getting old, Winston?”

“Non, ne sois pas ridicule. You look as young as ever.”

She smiles and swats his arm. “Stop.”

He pushes his horn rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose and rubs self-consciously at a patch of silver growing into his close-trimmed goatee. “One of us _is_ getting old, but it isn’t you.”

Angela’s brows knit together over blue eyes that seem suddenly quite lucid, and she looks so altogether sad at the reminder of their unsynchronized lifespans that Winston feels compelled to change the subject.

“Well,” he clears his throat lightly and checks the time on his silver link watch, bright like moonlight against his umber skin, “I have a few minutes before I need to meet Reinhardt. Want me to help you carry her upstairs?”

Angela sags with relief. “Would you? That would be great.”

“I’d shift and carry you both, but I don’t want to ruin another sweater.” He picks at the cotton covering his chest.

She smiles wryly. “I heard about the incident at dinner last night.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Winston says blithely and bends to scoop Amélie’s long, lanky frame into his arms. “Lead the way, Doctor.”

 

V v v v v V

 

Reinhardt is pacing the floor, barking nervous orders to Athena, when Winston enters the library ten minutes later.

“-And send an urgent message to Tiberius in Pacentro that he should be on the lookout for suspicious insurgents popping up around Abruzzo. Tell him to contact me immediately if he has any information regarding Reaper or his operatives.”

_“Message drafted, Herr Windhelm. Would you like to review it before sending?”_

“No. Sign and send, please.”

_“Message sent.”_

Winston’s gaze sweeps the room. A fire is roaring in the great, stone hearth, as per usual this time of year, but the atmosphere is tense. Jesse sips espresso from a dainty white cup in one of the oversized armchairs, looking haggard as ever in his wrinkled red pullover, Levis, and scuffed leather boots. Beside him, following Reinhardt’s every step with sharp, calculating eyes, Satya sits with her legs crossed stiffly in a midnight black sari. Her chin is lifted so high it looks nearly uncomfortable. Winston realizes why as soon as he spies the fourth person occupying the room.

He freezes with his hand on the doorknob. “What is she doing here?”

Reinhardt pauses mid sentence and looks up. “Winston, finally. Come sit.”

Winston blinks angrily. “What is _she_ doing here?”

Calm, but imposing, Agent Aleksandra Zaryanova sips her tea without sparing Winston, or his outrage, a single glance. Her muscular arms bulge in the sleeves of her navy blue suit. The polka-dotted, powder pink tie knotted at her throat matches the latest eyesore of a color she’s chosen for her spiky hair.

Neon pink.

Winston immediately hates it.

“Have you forgotten what happened the last time she was here?” he asks, gesturing.

Reinhardt regards him sternly. “Please don’t disrespect our guest, _Harold_.”

“She tried to _kill_ you! _And_ Jesse!”

Jesse shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “This is bigger than you’n me, buddy. Sit down before we all look like assholes.”

“We already look like assholes,” Winston huffs, but he does as he’s told, storming in and taking the velvet chair next to Jesse.

The door to the library slams behind him.

Agent Zaryanova continues sipping her tea if nothing has happened.

Shooting Winston a reproachful glance, Reinhardt turns to address the room. “Well, now that we’re all here, let’s get down to business.”

“Please,” Zaryanova murmurs, scarlet gaze lifting.

Winston grits his teeth. Satya’s lips tighten into a thin line.

“As you know, we have a problem on our hands. Ms. Zaryanova here assures me that the Kremlin has the same problem.” Reinhardt turns and lifts a cardboard shipping box from the mantle. “A courier delivered this package early this morning. It was addressed to me personally. Can any of you guess what’s inside?”

Silence echoes through the library, broken only by the hungry crackling from the warm fire. Even Zaryanova remains quiet. Reinhardt’s good eye roves between them in challenge. When no one has spoken for several seconds he slams the box down on the wooden coffee table. Ash sprays out in a cloud, blanketing the table and the carpet below. Satya blinks. Zaryanova frowns. Winston’s hand leaps to his chest.

Jesse leans forward to examine the contents of the box.

“It’s a severed hand,” he says, wrinkling his nose.

Winston peers over his shoulder with a grimace. “It’s pretty charred, but not totally decomposed. Maybe...two days old?”

“Less.” Reinhardt replies, tersely. “I have four more packages waiting for me in my study. Unopened. I’m fairly certain I already know what they contain. I recognize a threat when I see one.”

“It’s addressed from Zurich,” Jesse says, squinting at the label.

“Yes, from Schloss von Platen.” Reinhardt runs a hand over his combed, silver hair. “I sent a message to Dame von Platen over two hours ago, but I haven’t received a response.” His voice darkens to a growl. “At this point I don’t expect to.”

Winston leans back in his chair. “What does this mean?”

“It means this Reaper svoloch is eliminating clans,” Zaryanova says, gruffy. “What else would it mean?”

“She’s right,” Reinhardt agrees. “Someone targeted the Von Platen Clan, and they’ve made it pretty clear we’re next.”

Satya taps her nails against the armrest. “How could someone eliminate that many vampires without anyone noticing? Surely a fight like that would’ve made the local news.”

Reinhardt resumes pacing the length of the rug. “...I don’t know.”

“Do we know for sure the whole clan is gone?” Jesse suggests into the silence, slouched in his chair with crossed arms. “Maybe it was just the Matriarch. A targeted assassination. If I were Reaper that’s what I would do. Get in, get out, and do as much damage as you can while you’re there.”

“The American makes good point,” Agent Zaryanova grunts. “Is also what I would do. “

“We’re familiar with your tactics,” Winston says, coldly.

“Da, but you are not familiar with his. I can help. My agency has intelligence reports I am authorized to make available if we make an agreement.”

Winston turns to Reinhardt. “You’re not seriously considering this.”

“I’m considering every available option at this point.” Reinhardt pauses in his pacing, plucking at the silk, victorian tie tucked into his herringbone vest. “We’re fighting a guerilla war, and we’re losing. We need information.”

“But at what cost? The Kremlin can’t be trusted! The moment Reaper’s eliminated they’ll come after us next.” Winston spreads his arms. “This is a textbook Trojan horse situation. We let them in, they burn down the house.”

“There is no Trojan horse. You will work with me only.” Zaryanova runs the tip of her tongue over a sharp canine. “My associates are busy with a...situation elsewhere.”

“Moscow is overrun with freshly turned, feral vampires,” Reinhardt clarifies, and Zaryanova raises a brow in acknowledgement. “Is the Kremlin colluding with any other clans?”  

“Da, but I can tell you only in Kyiv.” She adjusts one of her gold cufflinks. “The others I do not know.”

“What about Helsinki? Tbilisi?”

She shrugs. “What about them?”

Jesse rolls his eyes. “Don’cha just love Russians? Straight shooters, the lot of them.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a beat up packet of Lucky Strikes. “If we let you stay are you gonna be spying on us, darling? Sending back intelligence reports to your owners?”

Agent Zaryanova regards him with ill-concealed contempt. “We know everything we care to know about your little clan.”

Jesse scowls. “Who you calling little?”

“It’s no secret you’ve been haemorrhaging members for decades.”

He tugs a battered zippo from his jeans pocket, flicks it open, and lights the end of his cigarette. “Hmph. That so.”  

Zaryanova turns her attention back Reinhardt, who has resumed his pacing in front of the fire. “I think you should accept my offer. We have information on Reaper that is of particular relevance to you, Herr Windhelm.”

Reinhardt pauses mid-step and swings around. “What kind of information?”

Zaryanova settles back into her chair, smug as a cat with a mouse. “The kind you will find very interesting.”

He strokes his goatee. “I’m listening.”

“We come to an agreement, and I will provide information. I will act in an advisory capacity, like Ms. Vaswani.”

Satya sighs, expression grim. “Between all of us, we have nothing. I think we should hear her out.”

“Alright, fine,” Reinhardt turns his broad shoulders back toward Agent Zaryanova, “let’s hear your terms.”

“You made the right choice,” she says, pausing to straighten her tie. “You won’t regret this.”

“Oh,” he mutters, taking a seat, “but I already do.”

 

V v v v v V

 

For the second time that month, Amélie comes round on a cot in the lab, flat on her back under a thin blanket. An IV drip of blood runs from the crease of her left arm. A heart monitor clipped to her right pointer finger beeps slowly, but steadily, somewhere over her right shoulder. She blinks up at the plaster ceiling and tries to remember how she got here, but there is only the image of Dr. Ziegler’s angry expression in a dark room, seared into her memory like a brand, and then...nothing.

Amélie’s head lolls to the right, toward the workbench, seeking out the doctor’s familiar white coat and blonde hair, but the workbench is unoccupied. Her slow heart sinks. Yellow lamplight glints off the wrappers and cans littering the desk. Packets of paper spill over the keyboard, forgotten. She inhales, breathing in a familiar and confusing array of smells. Dr. Ziegler’s honey-sweet scent wafts beneath it all like a warm undercurrent.

“Good evening.”

Amélie flinches and rolls her head to the left to find Dr. Ziegler watching her from the neighboring cot, legs crossed, computer balanced on her lap. She’s shed her white lab coat and her hair is loose around her shoulders, watery blue eyes rimmed red with fatigue. She looks fairly dwarfed by the size of her wooly, grey sweater, more a blanket than a garment. The folded, turtleneck collar swallows the totality of her slender neck, and the sleeves are both too wide and too long. Its hem easily covers the tops of her legging-clad thighs. Amélie is reminded of a fluffy turtle.

“Bonsoir, Dr. Ziegler.”

“Just Angela, please.” The doctor snorts softly and waves a hand. “I think we’ve officially reached that level of familiarity.”

Amélie blinks in confusion. “Have we?”

Realization dawns on Angela’s face. She twists her torso around to face Amélie, tugging down the collar of her sweater. A white bandage covers the right side of her neck underneath. It takes a moment for Amélie to process what she’s seeing. She squints, searching her memory, then, suddenly, understands.

“I- I did that?” she stammers. “B-but, je ne sais- I don’t remember-”

“-Relax, Amélie.” Angela sets her laptop aside, turning to face the other woman fully. “I’m alright.”

“But…” Amélie frowns. “How?”

Angela rolls her eyes, gaze sliding off to the side. “My own fault, really. I did something reckless.” She runs her fingers through her hair and tucks it behind one ear. “I tempted you with some of my blood, and you went into bloodlust.”

“What do you mean? What is bloodlust?”

Angela purses her lips. “Well, you’ve experienced it on at least two other occasions. The first, I would think, doesn’t bear mentioning.”

A cold, prickling sensation fills Amélie’s body. “Gérard.”

The doctor nods, and her expression instantly changes to one of haunted grief. Amélie doesn’t understand it, but she doesn’t get a chance to ask. Angela straightens up, leveling her hunched shoulders, and adopts a crisp, professional air.

“So, here’s the thing,” she says, swinging her legs over the side of the cot, “you went into bloodlust this morning because you haven’t been feeding yourself. I suppose no one’s told you yet how dangerous vampires are when they’re starving, but I’m sure by now you can deduce the risks on your own. Starved vampires enter a rabid, proto-conscious state and kill indiscriminately. As your doctor, I cannot, in good conscience, let you continue to live unsupervised amongst the other inhabitants of this building if you are not going to eat. The next time you go into bloodlust you might seriously injure one of our guests, or worse. Therefore, for the time being, you will be staying in the lab with me until I am satisfied you are willing to take care of yourself on your own.”

Amélie’s mouth flaps open and shut a couple times. “I…”

Angela stands, and her enormous sweater falls to mid thigh over her black leggings. “Do I make myself clear?”

Amélie gapes for a couple seconds more, then snorts abruptly. “You sound just like my mother.”

Angela looks fairly exasperated, but she cracks a weary smile as well. “I _feel_ just like your mother, ja?”

Amélie’s eyes sweep up the length of her. “Do you do this sort of thing for all your patients, _Angela_?”

“My other patients feed themselves without my supervision,” the doctor admonishes, and stalks over to the counter to grab a few instruments out of the drawer. “Let’s do your vitals while we’re at it. Then I’m going to sleep. I’ve had a long day.”

“Do you sleep in here, doctor?”

“For the time being,” Angela says, glancing pointedly over her shoulder. “I keep a room upstairs.”

Amélie pushes herself upright in the bed, feels a strange material shift against her skin, and peers down to find she’s been changed into a powder blue hospital gown. Her back and neck are extremely sore. She lifts her hand to massage the base of her throbbing skull, but stops when she spies a seamless, woven bracelet made of corded gold enclosing her left wrist.

Angela follows her line of sight as she pads back over. “A tracking bracelet. To keep tabs on you when I’m not around.”

Amélie turns it over, examining it. “Where’s the chip?”

“There is no chip.”

“Then how…?”

Angela unlocks the screen of her tablet and quickly types something in. “I’m not _just_ a doctor, you know. I have a varied assortment of skills.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“Well…” Angela pauses, brow furrowed in concentration, “caring for supernatural clientele sometimes means working with some of the more unconventional forces at play in our universe. What some might call ‘magic’.” Amélie gapes, and Angela lifts her eyes from the screen in her hand. “Do you believe in magic, Amélie?”

“Non,” Amélie replies, hoarsely.

Angela smiles as she goes to put on her stethoscope. “I think you may want to reconsider.”

 

V v v v v V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: the Russian government is significantly more hands on when it comes to the management of their supernatural residents...
> 
> It's as sinister as it sounds.


	7. The Blood of Monsters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 12.13.17  
> I realize, of course, that the jungle in Calais was shut down by French authorities in 2016, but if we could all just pretend for a moment…  
> ~Enjoy

A dark figure darts through the maze of blue-tarp tents and makeshift particle-board shelters clustered at the edge of the field. The night is cold and moonless. Fire flickers from a metal barrel in the clearing up ahead. Shadows dance in the narrow, dirt lanes between dwellings. A muddy shanty town has sprung up around a nucleus of white, metal shipping containers, all stacked and arrayed in neat, orderly rows by the French government. The refugee population has swelled to thousands, and conditions are squalid. No one minds if a loner goes missing here. It’s the perfect place to hunt.

Amal stops to sniff the air. Through the stench of trash, smoke, and stagnant water, the tang of fresh blood wafts from somewhere nearby. He’s zeroing in.

A voice whispers in his ear. _“Report.”_

“Close,” he murmurs, and crouches down behind a low wall of corrugated sheet metal as an intoxicated pair of teenage boys stumble past. “50 meters or less.”

_“I think there’s more than one.”_

“How do you know?”

_“Different scents mixing. Can’t you tell?”_

Amal glances at the pile of garbage mounded up near his feet. “No. Too much…interference.”

He checks to see that the lane is clear and darts out again, footsteps light as the breeze, carrying him further into the dark, winding outskirts of the camp. His nose begins to twitch, eyes adjusting as the firelight fades. His pointed black ears swivel back and forth atop his head, scanning. He ducks between a couple of large tents as the scent of blood grows stronger and kneels down behind to listen. He picks up the sound of suckling and heavy breathing nearby, through the hum of human life, babies crying, muffled conversations, people shifting in their sleep. Amal licks his lips and tastes the air. There’s a wolf here amongst the sheep.

_“Where are you?”_

“Outer ring by the north fire.”

_“I think I spotted one, heading into the trees 30 meters west of you.”_

“What’re they wearing?”

_“Jeans, white trainers, blue hoodie.”_

“Could be anyone.”

_“The yellow eyes are a giveaway.”_

Amal slips beyond the edge of the camp into the dark field, tawny brown skin inking to its rich, natural black. Sharp claws pop from the tips of his fingers. His jaw elongates into a narrow, canine snout, and the pointed ears atop his head stretch taller until he has taken on the elegant, lupine profile of his forefathers. Long grass stalks whip at his calves as he sprints toward a copse of trees, quiet as the wind that carries him. His smooth skin, damp with perspiration, glistens like polished obsidian. The golden band clamped around his bicep catches the light of the fading fire.

He can smell his prey keenly now. He can see the figures shifting in the dark. He flashes a mouth of sharp teeth as he lunges ahead into the trees and explodes through a heather bush, claws slicing diagonally across the first cold body he meets. The vampire snarls raggedly, and stumbles back. Branches snap and break. Leaves rustle. The scent of blood is overpowering. There are more than just one of them here. He can hear them in the bushes, fleeing through the woods.

They won’t get far. They’re already surrounded.

Amal pursues the wounded creature as it scrambles through the underbrush. It’s fast and slippery, but its young. It doesn’t have the knowledge or experience it will need to escape death. Amal’s claws slash at bushes, branches, and vines like machetes. The vampire hisses desperately as he draws near, chest raked open and bleeding, back pressed up against the trunk of an old, knotted oak. Its golden eyes peer out through the gloom, narrowed like a feral cat’s. Amal pauses to regard it for a moment, the visage of what was once a teenage boy, broad, flat nose, dark skin, round cheeks and high forehead. He has a kind face. Behind him, in the underbrush, lie the cooling remains of several bodies.

Amal bares his fangs and throws a blinding right hook that the vampire counters with a forearm in the knick of time. He doesn’t rally fast enough to catch the left. His jawbone snaps loudly in the quiet forest as it shatters. Ragged cries escape his throat. Amal ends it quickly, stabbing the sharp claws on his right hand striaght through the center of the vampire’s throat. Lukewarm blood sprays onto his fingers and his chest. Distant screams pierce the night as the vampire’s companions are cut down in the field.

Amal retracts his bloody hand and looms up to his full height.

“Let Wepwawet guide you,” he says, to the choking, gasping creature at his feet, and waits until the body begins to carbonize before sprinting off into the dark to join the others.

 

V v v v v V

 

837 kilometers away, Jesse McCree stands on the arched stoop of a scorched castle. The city lights of Zurich twinkle at his back through the snow, but the facade of Schloss von Platen smolders. Grey stone, burned black, looms up into the night sky. Shattered windows, like broken teeth, betray the destruction inside. Jesse’s already circled the property twice. The grounds are littered with charred and desiccated bodies, vampire and human alike.

Agent Zaryanova emerges from a line of fir trees at his back, luminous eyes sweeping the ruined front garden. She’s changed from her suit into an outfit reminiscent of the Russian military uniform, a grey ushanka hat, a heavy, forest green, fur-lined parka with shoulder straps, and black pants tucked into laced black boots. She looks obnoxiously conspicuous. Then again, she always looks obnoxiously conspicuous.

“I can see why they didn’t put you on covert ops,” Jesse observes, drily.

Zaryanova ignores him.

“They have sealed the perimeter with magic,” she says, all business. “There is a warding spell to keep humans away.”

Jesse drags on his cigarette. “How can you tell?”

She turns bored, red eyes on him. “I have my ways.”

“Yeah, I know.” Jesse flicks his cigarette butt into the snow and lights up another. “But I don’t trust your ways anymore’n I trust you, so why don’t you share.”

Her eyes narrow, but after appearing to think it over, she relents. “I can feel the magical energy.”

He arches a brow. “How? You a witch, too?”

“Any vampire can learn, durak neschastnyi. Tell your doctor to teach you.”

“Yeah, I’ll get right on that.” Jesse rolls his eyes and puffs on his cigarette for a moment. “So they don’t want humans here, but we walked in just fine. It’s a warning.”

“Da,” Zaryanova grunts. “Obviously.”

Jesse sighs. “I don’t think there’s anything else worth seeing here, do you?”

“Nyet.” She pulls a small thermos of blood from her inner pocket, unscrews the lid, and takes a sip. “I have learned all I needed to.”

“Which is…?”

“Reaper is not working alone. He has help.”

“Well, shit, I think we knew that much already.”

Zaryanova gives him an exasperated look. “Suka blyat, stupid noisy American. Stop talking and listen!”

“Alright, shit,” Jesse holds up his hands, “I’m listening.”

Zaryanova scowls at him. “Like I was saying, it is not of interest to me that he has help, but _who_ he has help from. These spells were made by someone with powerful magic. Reaper is not a warlock.”

Jesse chews quietly on the filter of his cigarette for a moment. When it becomes clear that Agent Zaryanova isn’t planning to elaborate, he flicks it away and zips up the collar of his jacket. The snow is falling thicker up here in the hills. It’s getting cold, even for a vampire.

“Alright, so, that’s bad fuckin’ news,”  he grits. “Papa Reinhardt’ll get his dirndl in a twist over this one.”

“He should,” Zaryanova says, darkly. “This is a bad omen.”

“To put it mildly.”

“We should return to the hotel now.” She turns and begins the trek down back down to the silver Range Rover at the end of the drive. “The sun comes up in two hours, and I need to make some calls.”

“Fine. I’ve had enough of this graveyard anyway.”

Jesse takes one last look at the hollowed castle behind him, then stuffs his hands in his pockets and turns to follow her to the car.  

 

V v v v v V

 

Mei adjusts her glasses and stares at Amélie .

Amélie stares impassively back at her.   

After several uninterrupted seconds, Mei blinks and looks back to Angela, whose brows are furrowed.

“So, what you’re saying is…?”

Angela snaps out of her thoughts. “I’m saying something’s wrong.”

“Because she’s sad?” Mei asks, nose scrunching.

“Because she’s _too_ sad.”

Amélie glances between them like a spectator at a tennis match, quietly sipping from a mug of hot blood through a straw. Mei added a little red wine with a wink while Angela wasn’t looking and the flavors marry surprisingly well. The wine cuts through the rich, cloying blood with a sour tang. It’s reminiscent of an afternoon aperitivo. The alcohol affects her a little differently now than she remembers, but it’s nice. Her skin feels warm.

“I think it’s only natural she’d be sad,” Mei adds, dubiously. “The trauma is still fresh in her mind.”

“Yes, but-“ Angela growls in the back of her throat. “Sheiße, what am I trying to say…”

She stands from her chair and does a 180 degree turn, golden hair spilling out of a tortoise shell clip. The smell of cigarette smoke clings to her body like stale perfume, and her skin holds a faint blush of pink, blooming under her cheeks and her sharp collar bones. It’s late- for the doctor at least- just past five in the morning. Her sweater hangs inside-out over the back of her chair, forgotten, and now she paces the length of the room in her disheveled black tank top and wrinkled slacks. Amélie studies the way the doctor’s weight shifts through her hips and thighs with each step, attention rapt.

“What I’m saying is… what I _mean_ is, she looks like a vampire, but she still, in many ways has the mind of a human.”

Finally, Mei seems to understand. “Oh. I see.”

Angela picks up her tablet and scrolls through some notes. “She has the interspecies empathy of a human, and the rapid emotional fluctuations of a human.”

“Well, she’s only just turned-“

Angela cuts her off with the shake of her head. “It’s been-“ she squints at her watch, “9 weeks, give or take. The changes should’ve started taking hold immediately. Young vampires are known for being less empathic, not more.”

“These transformations take time. Maybe she’s just a late bloomer.”

Amélie’s straw gurgles as she sucks up the dregs of her meal, and she sets her empty mug on Angela’s cluttered workbench. Mei immediately reaches over to fill it with more wine from the flask tucked into her fleece pocket. Angela doesn’t notice. Her head is tilted back, blue eyes fixed on a crack running through the center of the high ceiling.

She sighs. “I keep telling Reinhardt we should fix the foundational issues before they get worse, but he never listens to me.”

“Why don’t you go to bed, Angela?” Mei yawns. “It’s getting close to my bedtime, even.”

“Can’t.” Angela gestures loosely in Amélie’s direction.

Amélie sneers. “I can entertain myself for a few hours without your supervision, doctor.”

“I’ll watch her,” Mei says. “Go get a few hours in before sunrise.”

All at once the fight seems to leave Angela’s body. The rigid set of her shoulders gives way like an old bridge collapsing under its own weight and she slumps forward. She’ll sleep like the dead once her head hits the pillow. Amélie knows this from her previous night’s vigil, hunched on her cot in a borrowed pair of sweats with one of the doctor’s old paperbacks, watching the doctor’s chest rise and fall in the glow from the nightlight. Angela didn’t move, and didn’t snore. She hardly so much as twitched, and if there’s one thing Amélie recognizes from her time with the ballet company it’s exhaustion.

“Go,” Amélie prompts, gently, and Angela glances over at her in surprise. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

Angela’s mouth opens, but nothing intelligible escapes, just a faint noise of acknowledgement. Her throat works slowly. Her hand wanders up into her hair to test the structural integrity of her failing bun.

“I guess I could use a shower,” she says, faintly, and Mei giggles.

“You smell fine to me,” she says.

Amélie is inclined to agree.

“Alright, I’ll just… I’ll just run upstairs for a bit, then.” Angela blinks vacantly at the sweater draped over the back of her chair for a second before seeming to come a decision. “Right. Yes.” She snatches up the sweater and tugs it over her head inside-out. “I’ll be going then. Gute Nacht.”

“Bonne nuit,” Amélie responds as Mei gives a little wave, and Angela shoots her an unreadable, glossy-eyed look as she staggers from the room.

Silence descends as soon as the door clicks shut. Mei appears lost in thought. Amélie  ditches her straw in the trash can next to the workbench and sips her wine.

“Well,” Mei says, after a time, “should we go get more wine from the kitchen?”

Amélie  acquiesces with a nod.

She hasn’t actually seen the kitchen yet.

 

V v v v v V

 

They find it empty, except for a mustachioed, middle aged man in a double-breasted vest and victorian-collared shirt reading the paper quietly in the corner. A test sniff confirms Amélie’s suspicions that he is another vampire, and she watches him curiously from the counter while Mei rummages through the pantry.

The kitchen is less a kitchen and more a small, multipurpose common area with a long, banquet style dining table and an adjoining cooking area. In the way of appliances, there are two industrial fridges, two coffee makers, two microwaves, a toaster, a large dishwasher, and a pair of stacked ovens. The backsplash is old, mint green tile, but there’s a center island with a new butcher block cooktop and a stylish farmhouse sink. A large window looks out over early morning traffic on the street below. At the opposite end of the room, beyond the long, wooden table, an uneven ring of black leather chairs and couches are clustered around the old fireplace. Even the coffee table is askew. An enormous TV mounted on the wall over the mantel displays generic, rotating scenery of mountains, beaches, and misty forests. The time in the bottom right hand corner reads 5:30AM.

“Aha!” Mei emerges with a bottle of bordeaux. “I knew there was more in here. Reinhardt ordered a whole case last summer. There’s grüner too if you’d like.”

Amélie tilts her head, gaze sliding away from the man of anachronistic fashion in the corner. “Will it taste different than I remember?’

“I’m sure everything will,” Mei says, and reaches into the cabinet for a pair of wine glasses.

Amélie licks her lips, tongue catching on the point of a fang. “I’ll stick with le vin rouge.”

“Okay, coming right up.”

“How old are you?” Amélie asks. “Or am I not allowed to ask that sort of thing?”

“Mmmm,” Mei purses her lips as she uncorks the bottle. “Umm. Well, I can’t remember.”

Amélie frowns. “You can’t...remember?”

“I think 87? Maybe 88.”

“Oh.” Amélie pauses. “You look so young. This is hard to get used to.”

“Well, it’s hard with vampires.” Mei pours their glasses and hands one to Amélie. “Some people were turned later in life. You never know unless you ask.”

Amélie lowers her voice a bit out of courtesy. “The man in the corner?”

“That’s Fritz,” Mei says, and giggles. “He can hear you.”

“I’m 304,” Fritz interjects, without looking up from his paper. “305 next month.”

Amélie  colors a bit. “I forgot about the hearing.”

“You will for a while,” Mei assures, “but that’s normal.”

Mei leads her over to the long table and pulls out a chair. Amélie takes the seat across from her, gulping quickly from her wine. The bottle thunks down on the wood between them.

“How old is Dr. Ziegler?” she asks furtively, after moment.

Mei suddenly looks amused. “She wouldn’t tell you?”

“Non.”

“Interesting.” Mei strokes her chin, curious expression laced with mischief. “Speaking of interesting things, the doctor has taken quite an interest in _you_ , Amélie.”

Amélie scoffs. “She treats me like a nuisance.”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Mei leans closer, ruby eyes bright, “she’s usually mmm… how would you say… unflappable.”

“I haven’t seen Ziegler this flustered since her last divorce,” Fritz adds blithely, turning a page. “Though I wouldn’t give yourself too much credit, young lady. She’s been out on a couple dates recently.”

Amélie’s heart hiccups audibly, and Mei’s smile grows.

“Divorce?” Amélie repeats.

“Does that surprise you?”

“Well, I mean, I-” Amélie huffs and runs her fingers through her long ponytail. “No. I just don’t know anything about her.”

Fritz makes a harrumphing noise under his breath. “She’s a private woman, that doctor, but not nearly so inscrutable as she thinks.”

“Fritz knows everything,” Mei whispers with gleeful amusement.

He folds the paper in half and shoots them a severe glance over the top of it. “I make it my business to know the goings on around here, if that’s what you mean.”

“Then do you know how old she is?” Amélie asks.

He arches a brow. “Awfully curious, aren’t we?”

“Everyone is so coy about it.” Amélie swirls her wineglass. “So, oui, now I’m curious.”

Fritz sighs, amber eyes narrowing as he thinks. “By my reckoning she can’t be more than a century and a quarter old, though she punches well above her weight in terms of skill.”

“As a doctor?”

“As a witch.” Amélie’s eyes widen, and Fritz spares her an amused glance. “Or doesn’t she call herself that anymore?”

“She thinks it’s outdated,” Mei supplies.

“Always a modernist.” Fritz goes back to his paper. “Perhaps one day she’ll learn to respect the wisdom of tradition.”

Amélie balls her hands into loose fists and stares down at her arms, at the golden band woven around her left wrist, and the black symbol burned into her right forearm. They are twin shackles from different jailers, but the prison, she realizes, is the same.

Mei follows her gaze, and a familiar sort of sadness blooms on her face, tugging her smile down into a flat, pensive line.

“Maybe we should...talk about some things,” Mei says. “If you want to.”

Amélie lets her fingers relax, but she feels heavy. “What kind of things?”

“Well, we don’t exactly have a welcome packet around here, and everyone’s been distracted with Reaper, so...anything you want.” Mei brightens a bit. “Maybe we can talk about vampire stuff.”

“Dr. Ziegler told me most of the details already,” Amélie says, frowning. “I can learn how to retract my teeth a bit to hide them. I can wear heavy sunblock to help with the light sensitivity. I’ll live for hundreds of years.” She pauses. “I’ll lose my emotions.”

“No, no!” Mei’s hand stretches out across the table, reaching toward Amélie. “You won’t lose them.”

Amélie glances up sharply. “But Dr. Zeigler said-”

“-Angela is a genius, but there are still lots of things she doesn’t understand.” Mei’s eyes soften. “In purely scientific terms, it’s true that vampires process empathy and emotion differently than humans, but we are not emotionless zombies. _”_

A knot rises in Amélie’s throat. “I just don’t want to forget Gérard,” she whispers.

Mei shakes her head. “You won’t.”

“It feels wrong not to mourn him.”

“Then mourn him.” Mei offers a sad smile. “It doesn’t matter what anyone says. You’re allowed to grieve, Amélie. You can take as long as you need.”

The tabletop blurs before Amélie’s eyes. A dry, choking sound leaves her lips, and Mei’s fingers tangle with hers. She hears Fritz stand to leave, folding his newspaper quietly and straightening his clothes, but he stops to lay a gentle hand on her shoulder as he passes. His voice is quick and quiet in her ear.

“Time lightens our burdens, mein spatz. Bear it a little longer yet.”

He departs, and Mei’s grip tightens.

Amélie cries as the sky begins to lighten through the the kitchen window. For the first time in months, she feels like she is letting something out instead of holding something in.

 

V v v v v V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Before you all start thinking about werewolves... don't.  
> ;)

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: liked the story? leave me a review! i love to hear from you! 
> 
> want to support me as a writer? come chat with me on tumblr @ aeschylusrex to find out how!


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